Equilibrium
by Surarrin
Summary: Ahsoka feeling abandoned, betrayed and disillusioned with the Jedi Order, decided to part ways. She left to find meaning and purpose in her life. She never expected it to come in the form of an enigmatic green eyed young man who had more than a passing interest in the past. She never imagined that learning about the history of the galaxy could be so dangerous—or magical.
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

 _14:03:19 GrS  
_

 _UNKNOWN, Deep Core_

Darth Tyranus, more commonly known as Count Dooku of Serenno was feeling what could charitably be called trepidation as he stared out from his quarters on the Invisible Hand into the tumultuous hyperspace void before him.

It had been a month ago when he had felt it—when he presumed that all Force Sensitives had felt it—a great disturbance echoing through the force, precariously close to the Galactic Centre—further into the Deep Core than was safe to travel.

The Deep Core was home to some thirty billion of the galaxy's oldest stars, and at its centre was a super massive black hole surrounded by antimatter and clusters of stars that were only a hundredth of a light year apart. In some areas the stars were in such tight formation that they would collide and rip the cores from one another, reshaping and forming into new celestial bodies.

It made Hyperspace travel precarious at best. The Mass Shadows generated from the stars here were unpredictable. Due to the vast number of stars and prominence of dark matter, local space-time was severely warped. Relying on month old probe data was dangerous at best, suicidal at worst. It made progress slow.

Dooku had been in the Outer Rim in the midst of negotiating the withdrawal of several star systems from the Republic when he had felt the disturbance, and yet, even now he could feel the echo of the disturbance growing ever stronger as they approached the source despite the time that had passed.

Whether it was the will of the force or not to seek out the source of the disturbance, Dooku did not know, but his master had made it very clear that it was his will that it be found. Such was the strength of the disturbance.

There was a certain familiarity to with the disturbance, as Dooku got closer to the source it began to remind him of the devastation and death of large-scale battles, of entire star cruisers being destroyed, and their crew becoming one with the force. But though there was similarity it was not the same, it was too concentrated— too focused— and yet, so vastly deeper.

Dooku's musings were cut short as he felt the ship drop out of hyperspace. There was a brief moment of quiet and stillness before an all-encompassing light seared the Sith Lord's eyes. It only lasted for a brief moment before the phototropic properties of the transparisteel took effect and the large viewports that surrounded him became opaque.

Moments later a hologram of a droid appeared before Dooku from one of the many projectors situated around what had once been the sensor pod for the Invisible Hand, before he had occupied it.

"Sir, we have arrived at our destination," a synthetic voice said through the speakers.

Dooku's lips thinned out and an irritated glint appeared in his eyes. "Clearly," he said.

"Modified Ray Shields are withstanding the intense solar radiation with minimal strain," he holographic droid stated. There was a pause and the droid looked to the side. "We are detecting no foreign bodies. With your permission we will begin redirecting power from the particle shield bolster ray shielding and extend the duration we can maintain our presence."

Dooku remained silent for a long moment before turning toward the throne near the middle of the observation deck and slowly walking over to it. "Very well," he said. "Do so, and begin scans to determine the cause of the…disturbance."

"Roger," the Droid in the hologram agreed before it flickered and vanished, leaving the once Jedi alone once more.

Dooku lowered himself upon his throne and laid his head back, resting it as he closed his eyes and began reaching out through the force, seeking out the source of the disturbance.

This matter had long since passed beyond the realm of professional curiosity. His master had been most insistent that he personally locate the source, insistent to the point of sending the flagship of the Confederacy of Independent Systems' fleet, the Invisible hand, into such perilous territory.

Which of course, he understood the need for. Beyond it being a Sith matter, and thus not something that could be relegated to the lesser, journeying this far into the core required a ship large enough, and a power core strong enough to hold back the immense radiation long enough to seek out the cause.

As the Count of Serenno fell into his trance, and his mind began to unfold, he began to notice something out of place. There was a presence nearby, something he hadn't felt before. It was illusive and impossible to catch, like trying to hold a shadow in the light.

Dooku lost track of time as he sat in his chair, trying to unravel the strange mystery set before him. But all too soon, he was stirred from his mediative trance by a synthetic voice.

"Sir, we have been unable to detect any planetoids, structures or ships in this sector. An hour of time has elapsed and our shielding is down to twenty percent." The voice hesitated for a moment. "Once shields drop below fifteen percent we will begin to sustain critical hull damage and be unable to jump into hyperspace."

The grey haired Sith Lord did not open his eyes "Focus scanning arrays on the starboard side of the ship, twelve degrees below the port bow. There is something there that cannot be felt by the force."

There was silence for some time before, "…Scans have returned positive results." Another brief period of silence. "It appears to be humanoid and organic in nature."

Dooku did not respond straight away. His eyes remain closed and his fingers began to rhythmically drum against the arm of his chair as he contemplated the new information.

It was… unexpected to say the least. He had theorized of many possibilities for what could have caused a disturbance that was felt from the very edges of the galaxy.

There had been detailed accounts of such galactic scale disturbances in the past, and every time one had been felt, it had been traced back to a significant loss of life, the most common form of which resulted from a star going supernova and wiping out the planets within its star system.

The standing theory had been that somehow, a planet had survived and gone undetected since the beginning of the Republic, hidden away within the depths of the Deep Core. It wasn't unheard of for life to appear, though it was extremely unlikely that any such civilizations had ever left their planet of origin.

"Bring it aboard," Dooku finally said, slowly opening his eyes.

There was a moment of silence.

"Sir, any ship we send out will be destroyed within seconds."

Another moment of silence passed, interspersed with the steady drum of Dooku's fingertips against his armrest as he considered the conundrum before him. In retrospect it was an oversight not to bring an advance ray-shielded ship via the docking bay. While it may not have been able to withstand the harmful Deep Core radiation for long, it would have been more than enough to retrieve something. The time it would take to modify one of the droid ships on board to withstand the severity of the solar winds was unfeasible. The ship would be destroyed before the job was finished.

The grey haired sith did not have to contemplate long.

"Manoeuvre the ship as to intercept the body with the hangar bay."

"Right away sir." The hologram vanished again.

It wasn't even a minute later that the hologram flickered into existence and Dooku's eyes immediately came to rest upon the droid depicted by it. "Body has been recovered and is being transferred to Deck 5 Medbay. With your permission we will now vacate the area, sir?"

Dooku remained in his seat, his expression pensive and his fingers absently tracing over the hilt of his Lightsaber. "Permission granted."

The hologram one again vanished and the utter silence in the observation deck that followed was almost as disconcerting as the presence that lingered at the edge of his mind.

The journey out of the Deep Core went significantly faster than the journey into it. It was a comparatively simple matter of retracing the ships path around the winding hyperspace corridors of mass shadows.

By the time Dooku deemed it appropriate to rise from his chair, the Invisible Hand had already departed the galactic core and was enroute to the shipyards of Sluis Van, deep in the heart of the Confederacy controlled space.

A turbo lift later followed by ten minutes of walking through the mostly empty corridors of the spaceship, Dooku found himself at the entry point to them where the droids had brought the unknown entity from the deep core.

The doors let out a hiss as they drew open and revealed the sterile metal interior of the medbay. The grey haired Sith Lord was given pause as he found himself staring into a room devoid of the corpse he had expected. Dooku's gaze swept through the modest sized room, over the various operating tables. His eyes came to rest upon the far end, where a series of large transparent tanks were set.

In front of one such tank stood a 2-1B surgical droid—that bore a striking resemblance to a robotic skeleton—diligently monitoring the apparatus before it, inside of which floated the sole focus of this entire expedition. Dooku crossed the medbay toward the tanks, his footsteps echoing in a room filled with naught but the irregular beeps of medical machines.

As Dooku got closer, and closer, he found himself standing before the source of the galaxy wide disturbance in the force. The sense of foreboding and wrongness that he had been experiencing amplified with each step he took. However, despite his discomfort, Dooku was not cowed.

Throughout his tenure as a Jedi he had seen things, many nightmarish things born of the primordial chaos that spurned the galaxy into being. Creatures that would have brought a lesser mind to ruin. Compared to the eldritch monstrosities he had borne witness to, such unpleasantness was trifling.

Especially when the source was, to put it in simple terms, mundane. The creature before him was decidedly… human in appearance, though, for the galaxy at large that definition was rather broad in its scope, from its pale flesh, to the thick strands of dark hair that floated listlessly atop its head inside the liquid filled tank.

The Sith Lord's eyes roamed over the naked form inside the tank, categorically studying every inch for something odd, or out of place. The largest of which was the distinct lack of evident damage from the significant cosmic radiation it had been bombarded with or the vacuum of space that it had been found in.

An impossibility in and of itself that he contemplated as he began to take note of the scars upon the body before him.

A large round puncture wound on the right upper forearm, no doubt made by the fang of a beast of significant size. A long thin slice upon the other arm as well as more puncture wounds, this time smaller, close together.

Upon the humanoids chest there was another mark, though it wasn't scar as much as it was a burn. The placement set it over the owners' heart, though it, like the others, was faded.

The last two noticeable marks upon the corpses flesh came in the form of a scrawl upon the back of one of its hands—though it had the intricacies of a language, Dooku could not recognize its origin— and the very last, he had almost missed.

A thin, faded, jagged scar reminiscent of lightning upon its temple that seemed otherwise innocuous.

"Why did you put the body in a Bacta tank?" Dooku asked suddenly as the thought occurred to him. His gaze drifted from the body in front of him to the surgical droid in front of it.

The motor servos of the droid whirred as it turned its skeletal head toward him. "To heal," it responded.

Dooku frowned.

There was little to no point in putting a dead body inside a Bacta tank. Bacta was a panacea, certainly and was capable of curing any type of ailment or injury—even ones that were potentially fatal, if administered in time. But it did not have the ability to cure death itself.

Dooku looked down to the medical display outlining the various biometrics of the body inside the tank. A prominent part of the display included a very obvious, very flat heartrate of zero.

Yet, Dooku found himself given pause. It wouldn't have been the only impossibility that the body presented, a far lesser one than the others. While there were not many, there was a few species who did had no need of a heart to function and live. As far as the Sith Lord knew, however, none of them were humanoid in nature, much less distinctly human.

"Is it alive?" Dooku asked finally, turning his gaze to the droid beside him.

"It is dead."

Dooku felt a spark of impatience. "Why is it in the Bacta tank if it is dead?"

"It needs to heal."

"How can it heal if it is dead?"

The surgical droid froze as it attempted to process the question and failed. The lights in its eyes flickered and then died away as it shut down, only to turn back on as it rebooted. "I apologise, I seem to have suffered an unexpected malfunction," it said. "What was the question?"

Dooku found himself perturbed by the droids response to his question. There was a brief moment where Dooku considered repeating the question, before deciding against it. Clearly, there was something wrong with the droid and yet… something was fundamentally wrong with the body before him. The force told him that it was not there, and did not—should not—exist.

"What has the medscan revealed?"

The surgical droid was still for a moment, before it turned toward the Bacta tank and brought up an array of information on one of the displays.

"Subject is base human, male—biological age indeterminate. Genetic markers do not match any known planet within planetary database."

Dooku frowned once more. That the body could not be traced to a planet within the known galactic community, was not a surprise. He had suspected as much. Once more his gaze was drawn to the pale body before him. That the droid could not determine the age was a curiosity at best.

Dooku would surmise that the body was barely beyond the age of responsibility of some of the core worlds. There was a certain youth about it, even in death.

There was a sudden stillness within the tank. The body's hair, which floated listlessly, froze, and as it did, there was a sudden sense of all-encompassing emptiness as the sense of foreboding and wrongness that permeated the corpse suddenly vanished.

The heart monitor attached to the tank began to beep.

A pair of vivid green eyes stared out at him from within the tank.

* * *

 **Chapter One**

 _16:02:17 GrS_

 _CORUSCANT, Core_

For the first time in a long time, Ahsoka Tano could say she was almost content. It had been a month since she had been put on trial before the galactic community for treason and sedition against the Galactic Republic, and it was only thanks to a timely intervention by her once master—Anakin Skywalker, that she had survived.

A month since the Jedi Order had turned its back on her in her darkest hour. A month since they had striped her of her rank and offered her up to the Senate as a sacrificial lamb to which she, after being exonerated, turned her back upon them and left the only life she had ever known.

She had thought that walking away from the temple had been the hardest thing she would ever have had to do.

To date, it still was.

Unfortunately, surviving on Coruscant had quickly proven to be a challenge in and of itself.

It had never occurred to the young Togruta how much the Jedi Temple had provided for her. It had never been something to consider. However, outside the temple, nothing was free. Everyone wanted something, and if you didn't have what they wanted, they had no time for you.

For some silly reason, Ahsoka had assumed that her being acquitted of her trial would have lent her some credibility, or some sympathy. She had been wrong. No one had been willing to ferry her off planet. The excuses had ranged from the simple to the ludicrous, but the message was clear.

Ahsoka Tano was persona-non grata. No one wanted to be the person who had to list her on the passenger manifest. Likewise, any hint to smuggling her off planet was quickly met with closed doors.

There was a single person on Coruscant that Ahsoka trusted, and that person was in a place she refused to ever step foot.

No reputable passenger ship would take her, which meant she had to turn to those of ill repute who were found below the surface of Coruscant, far, far down. Criminals who would sooner drug her and sell her into slavery, than give her a free ride off the planet. She knew that for a fact—they had tried.

To get free of Coruscant, she needed to speak their language, and the only languages the underworld understood was credits and violence.

Neither were languages she could speak at the time.

Once upon a time she had been a Jedi Padawan with the full force of the Order behind her. That had meant she could get away with things like appropriating aircars, breaking things and intimidating suspects. She no longer had her lightsabers, which by themselves had been a measure of visible authority. No one messed with someone with lightsabers. Either they were a Jedi and you'd get locked up for impeding an investigation, or they weren't, and were more likely to use them.

When she used to do those things no one batted an eyelash. These days, not so much. The first time she had tried to intimidate someone into helping her, well. Suffice it to say the law enforcement in the area hadn't been impressed.

Violence was a language she could no longer speak.

Credits on the other hand…

A month ago Ahsoka had only the clothes on her back. These days, not so much.

It had been tough at first, getting enough credits to survive. Everything cost credits; food and accommodation especially. She'd never really had to worry about them before, it had been an abrupt realization that they were going to become a mainstay of life.

There had been one small mercy. They had taken her lightsabers, but they couldn't take the force from her.

Ahsoka was too proud to mind trick someone into giving up their lifesavings so she could get off world. She wasn't that cruel or callous, as much as she wished she were.

Convincing someone to give her a job however, that much she didn't have an issue with.

A month ago she had been a Jedi, a sworn protector of peace and defender of justice. A general amongst the largest army the galaxy had ever seen. She had been adored throughout countless star systems, heralded as a hero and someone to look up to.

These days, not so much. But things were going to change soon, she could feel it. For the first time, in a long time, she was almost content.

Almost.

Ahsoka found herself intently focused on the cocktail in front of her that she was meticulously mixing. One slip up and the blue skinned Rodian in front of her would be on his back before you could say anaphylaxis.

"Here you go, one rancid rancor," the Togruta said with a forced smile as she set the noxiously fuming fluro orange beverage in front of the customer. "That'll be two credits."

She collected the credits without any complaint from the patron in front of her, who took the drink and scurried away to a dark corner of the cantina. She deposited the credits that the Rodian had paid with and turned her attention out into the dimly lit, smoke filled cantina.

The orange skinned former padawan didn't even twitch as a particularly potent waft of acrid smoke found its way to her. It had been a few weeks since the unpleasant sting of the toxic fumes had managed to make her flinch. She probably would have been concerned for the health ramifications in any other situation, but it was unavoidable.

It was the entertainments night off, which meant the normal musical cacophony that would muffled the drone of the various whispers and conversations of ill repute were hard to block out. Her lips curled slightly as she forced herself to block out the murmurings of a smuggler and what appeared to be a black market weapons dealer.

Once upon a time that would have brought her to action. But now she had more important things to worry about—like the pair in the back of the cantina that were beginning to cause a ruckus over what looked to be a game of pazaak.

On closer inspection, Ahsoka realized that one of the pair was a cantina regular—A Duros called Tarla De Maal—a cardshark who made her money off the drunk and disorderly.

Tarla was very prototypical of her race. She had smooth, blue-green skin, large red goggle-like eyes, a long, thin, noseless face and a lipless mouth that was currently curved ever so slightly in a self-amused smirk.

Across the table from her was a Weequay that Ahsoka didn't recognize, though she could never tell them apart. They all looked the same with their thick leathery skin, spikey jaws and all that. The only difference she could ever tell was the shades of brown their skin ran through.

Either way, she wasn't a fan. She'd never met a Weequay she liked.

From the way this one was shouting, she doubted that was going to change today.

Officially Ahsoka wasn't supposed to get involved in customer disputes, and to date she'd never been caught doing so. She glanced up toward a holo sign that hung above the bar, it read;

'25 Days since Last Fatality.'

She wasn't particularly interested in seeing it reset to zero.

The orange skinned girl took in a slow breath before softly exhaling and reaching out through the force. With a soft twist of her wrist and curl of her fingers she acted.

Across the cantina, the Weequay who was causing a commotion let out a shout of surprise as his feet seemed to slip out from beneath him and he banged his head upon the edge of the table, rendering him either unconscious or… probably unconscious.

Ahsoka briefly caught sight of Tarla collecting her paazak deck from the floor where it had been scattered, before she turned back to another customer who called for her attention.

"Thank you for your timely assistance once again."

Ahsoka looked up to find Tarla standing at the edge of the bar and smiled in faint amusement. "You know I won't always be here to deal with those thugs you rip off, right?" she asked as she polished a crystal flask and set it upon one of the shelves behind her.

The Duros' large red eyes regarded her for a moment in silence. "You're leaving," she stated, rather than questioned.

"I've saved up enough credits that I should be able to buy my way off this rock," Ahsoka admitted. "It's taken longer than I would have thought, but if all goes well, this will be the last night I spend on Coruscant."

Tarla looked at Ahsoka, her gaze pensive. "I wish you well, Ahsoka Tano," the female Duros said, drawing a hand up onto the bar top and setting it down.

When she moved it, Ahsoka found herself staring at a neat pile of credits. "What's this for?"

"For services rendered," Tarla said, an almost affectionate note to her voice, before she turned, and left the cantina.

Ahsoka wordlessly stared after the blue skinned woman, watching as she drew up her cloak around herself and vanished outside. "Don't even think about it," Ahsoka said, turning her gaze down to a furry hand that was slowly creeping toward the pile of credits.

Its owner recoiled at being caught and scampered away.

Ahsoka scooped up the credits, not bothering to count them as she pocketed them and returned to her bartending duties.

It wasn't until the early hours of the morning that Ahsoka's shift replacement arrived. She didn't waste any time in collecting her wages for her work and vacating the cantina, her proverbial purse, that much more full.

Her next stop found her at the tiny closet of an apartment she had been renting, collecting the few meagre possessions she had managed to accumulate. On the way out she stopped in to talk to the manager of the building and collect the security deposit that she had been required to leave with them.

A quick Jedi mind trick later and she found herself that much more financially comfortable. She pulled out a thick hooded cloak from her bag and pulled it on. She hailed down the first airtaxi she saw and instructed the driver to take her to Terminal 24 which connected to the Coruscant Underworld Portal.

The Portal scaled all the from the glimmering spires on the planet's artificial surface—Level 5127—all the way down to the inhospitable lower levels on a sliding scale of bad to worse, the closer you got to the planets natural surface.

As the airtaxi rose up into the air, Ahsoka couldn't help but look out over the dark expanse of Level 1313, or what she had reluctantly called home. It was a dark facsimile of Coruscant's upper level, filled with all manner of crooks and criminals.

As well as those who had nowhere else to go or had never known anything else but the darkness, filth and artificial light that were the lower levels of Coruscant's underworld.

The orange skinned togruta lost track of time as she stared at the sea of neon lights that swam below the taxi as it took her to her destination.

Terminal 24 was all but empty when she arrived—which suited her fine. Ahsoka drew her cloak around her, the thick dark material doings its best to stave off the cold as well as disguise her features from any prying eyes as she made her way toward one of the various computer terminals that lined the walls leading toward the massive ventilation shaft that lead up to the surface.

Seeing the grime covered surface, Ahsoka grimaced and bunched up a handful of her cloak to wipe it clean—at least enough to see what she was looking at. Ahsoka began to navigate through to the proper transport menus and began to go over the logged planetary departure logs, sending through passenger requests to the legitimate ships and sending through a request to 'expedite the delivery of live cargo for a modest fee' to those who weren't.

By the time she finished submitting requests most had been declined and the few that hadn't, asked for fees high enough that she could have bought her own ship—not that she'd have probably gotten off world with it, the way things were going.

"You seem lost."

Ahsoka was startled as a young, cultured voice spoke from behind her. She had been so engrossed in what she had been doing that they'd managed to sneak up on her. Her master would have scolded her for her lack of spatial awareness. She maintained her composure and managed not to react physically, continuing to stare down at the terminal in front of her.

"Is that so?" Ahsoka asked, her voice holding a dry quality to it. "If you can see that much with this cloak on then it isn't doing its job properly."

"It's doing its job well enough, but then, I'm not looking at you with my eyes."

Ahsoka's hand absently drifted down from the console to her waist, only for her hand to clench as her fingers touched upon nothing but fabric. She frowned and mentally chided herself for forgetting that she no longer had a Lightsaber.

She took a faint breath and forced herself to relax, her hand unclenching at her side. She couldn't sense any outward hostility in the voice, nor through the force. All the same, she began to erase the requests she had sent out through the computer terminal.

"That's quite the trick," Ahsoka said as she turned around. "You'll have to…"

The former padawan had no idea what she had expected to see, but it certainly hadn't been a young man with bright green eyes and a pleasant smile.

She had been so disarmed and distracted by how benign he seemed at first glance, that she almost glossed over what he was wearing.

The young man was covered by a silvery cloak, the material of which Ahsoka couldn't determine, beneath which he was dressed in a black, belted tunic over a pair of matching trousers and leather boots. The outfit bore a striking resemblance to the one worn by Count Dooku.

"That's… an interesting outfit you have there," Ahsoka said. "Where'd you get it?"

The young man smiled and brought a hand up, idly brushing his fingers over the tunic. "Do you like it?" He asked and grinned. "I permanently borrowed it from a rather irate fellow."

Ahsoka's brow furrowed. "Permanently borrowed it?"

The figure opposite her shrugged a shoulder. "It sounds so much better than 'I stole it' doesn't it?"

"I suppose," Ahsoka said slowly. "What do you want?"

The young man's eyebrows rose. "That's a rather open ended question isn't it?" He looked to actually consider it. "I'm a bit hungry honestly, and I don't particularly feel like any of the poodoo that they consider food down here. But if you meant out of life, well I hadn't really considered that question in—"

"I meant with me," Ahsoka interrupted. "Why did you talk to me? What do you want?"

The figure blinked. "No particular reason," he said. "I was just passing by and noticed that you looked lost."

"I know exactly where I am, thank you," Ahsoka said heatedly.

"I did not mean physically."

Whatever it was that Ahsoka was going to retort with died on her lips and her stomach twisted upon itself and she swallowed a lump that had formed in her throat.

"Maybe I am lost," she finally said, allowing herself a rare moment of honesty with herself. "I've had purpose and direction my entire life, I've never been alone and I've never been without guidance. I don't know where I need to go, but I know that getting off this misery heaped planet is the first step."

The figure in front of her was silent as he regarded her with his green eyes. After a few moments, he finally spoke. "Have you considered that you don't need to go anywhere?"

Ahsoka snorted. "I'm not staying here. I'd rather jump in a sarlac pit."

The figure smiled again and waved a hand dismissively. "You misunderstand, let me put it this way. Maybe you need to stop trying to determine where you need to go, and consider where you want to go?"

"Who… are you?"

The young man's smile widened.

"Harry Potter, pleased to meet you."

Ahsoka hadn't expected him to answer, she certainly hadn't expected such a peculiar name. "Ahsoka Tano," she said after a moment. "Likewise."

A stretch of silence followed as Ahsoka stared at the now identified 'Harry Potter', trying to figure out what his game was. "You said that I needed to consider where I wanted to go," Ahsoka finally spoke. "I already have a destination in mind, it's called 'anywhere but here', but I can't find any ship willing."

Harry blinked and lifted a hand, pointing over his shoulder toward one of the various starships docked at the terminus. "How about that one?"

Ahsoka followed his finger and found herself looking at a rather angular ship. It's wings were currently raised into an upright position and stood tall at what appeared to be fifty meters both from side to side and top to bottom, tapering into sharp points near the top. Both wings appeared to be connected to the fuselage at the back of the starship on what appeared to be rotors.

"What's special about…" Ahsoka began to say, only to trail off and turn back toward Harry. "That can't be your ship."

"I permanently borrowed it as well," Harry said, before adding on. "From someone else."

Ahsoka would have laughed in any other circumstance. "Are you a thief?"

"I wouldn't consider myself a thief."

"What would you consider yourself then?"

Harry took a moment to consider the question. "I don't feel comfortable labelling myself," he finally decided. "I'm a very complex person, you know? Stealing underwear and spaceships is just one facet of who I am."

Ahsoka stared at the odd human for a few long seconds and decided not to consider the ramifications of what he had just said, assuming he had taken the clothes from who she thought he had, and had not simply been given them.

"Was that supposed to encourage me to go with you?" Ahsoka asked skeptically.

"No of course not," Harry said. "You've already decided on coming with me."

Ahsoka's eyebrow rose up. "Have I now?"

Harry nodded. "Of course," he said easily. "The only question is whether you want to come with me now, or wait until I get back from the lower levels."

"Why would you want to go down further?" Ahsoka asked, finding herself more and more sceptical of the young humans' mental health with every word he spoke.

Harry grinned. "I consider myself a sort of cross between a historian and archaeologist—a histologist, if you would. I'm interested in finding out about the past, and as far as the galaxy goes, Coruscant's bedrock is as close to ground zero as you can get."

Ahsoka stared at Harry for a long moment. "I don't think that word means what you think it means. In fact, I don't think you have a clue what you're doing. Don't you know how much more dangerous it gets the closer you get to Level 1? No one willingly goes down there."

Harry gave Ahsoka an affronted look. "Of course, nothing worthwhile is ever easy."

Somehow Ahsoka doubted he really understood what he was intending to do. No one that easy going and relaxed when talking about the lowest levels of Coruscant knew what they were getting into.

"You know that people rarely come back after going below Level 50?" Ahsoka asked. "That there are things without names down there? That you're asking me to come with you on a suicide mission, or wait here for you, when you're never coming back?"

"Yes."

Ahsoka couldn't help it. She let out a bark of laughter and shook her head. "You're insane," she informed him.

Harry blinked. "Does that mean you're not coming?"

Ahsoka shook her head. "No, it means I'm crazier for even considering going with you."

Harry let out a laugh. "If it makes you feel better, some of the greatest people I've ever met were off their rocker."

"That doesn't make me feel better at all." Ahsoka sighed as she realized she was genuinely considering the offer. She couldn't help but wonder when it was that she became so reckless. Probably around the time she became Skyguy's padawan.

When in doubt, blame Anakin.

Ahsoka licked her lips. "If I go with you—and we make it out alive, you'll take me where ever I want to go?"

Harry's smile never wavered. "You have my word."

Ahsoka finally made her decision. "Alright," she said. "I can't in good conscience let you go down there by yourself, and if I can't stop you, then… you have a much better chance of survival with someone to watch your back."

Harry chuckled. "And you have a much better chance of getting off Coruscant?"

"That too," Ahsoka admitted without shame and shook her head, unable to believe what she was agreeing to. "Let's get going before I change my mind."

Harry nodded and turned around, the shimmering liquid silver material of his cloak fluttering briefly before settling back down as he made his way toward his ship.

Ahsoka didn't move for a few seconds as she internally wondered why she had agreed to go with him. Surely there were other options available to her aside from a detour down into the depths of Coruscants underworld.

The simple truth was that there wasn't any other better option.

Ahsoka followed after Harry, acutely aware of how screwed she was, and missing her lightsabers more than ever as she thought about the various creatures, mutants and monsters that were rumoured to dwell in the furthest depths of Coruscant.

Ahsoka picked up the pace and soon fell in step with Harry as they approached her ticket off of Coruscant. "So," she began. "You said you permanently borrowed the ship?"

"I did," Harry acknowledged. "For the life of me I can't remember from who though."

"I recognize the model," Ahsoka said. "It's of mandalorian make, and I've only ever seen it used by a terrorist group called the Death Watch."

Harry looked at Ahsoka. "You know, now that you mention it, that name does sound familiar. They weren't too interested in exchanging pleasantries at the time, so it wouldn't surprise me—I've never exactly gotten along well with groups whose name started off with Death." He reached down to his wrist and pressed a button.

Ahsoka watched as the back of the ship opened up and a ramp dropped down to the platform in front of them. "Get many of those, do you?"

"More than you'd think reasonable," Harry said as he walked up the ramp and entered his ship. "Welcome aboard, Ahsoka," he said.

Ahsoka didn't quite smile as she boarded the spaceship. Her eyes flickered around, taking in the sparely decorated cargo hold. There were boxes here and there, steadily fastened to cargo racks on either side, and at the far end there was a door leaving through to the next section.

The walls of the compartment were covered with various displays, outputs, buttons and diagnostics, along with a few chairs that were currently collapsed against the walls, providing more walking space. At the other end there was a staircase leading up into the cockpit. There was a door on each side of the stairs, though they were both shut.

Ahsoka drew one of the seats down and set her bag on it. She hesitated for a moment before pulling off her cloak, folding it up and slipping it under her bag.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the ramp draw up from the platform and the rear hatch shut, followed by the cargo bay door behind her.

"When you're ready come join me in the cockpit," Harry said to Ahsoka with a smile.

Ahsoka watched as the human vanished up the stairs, leaving her to her thoughts. "Out of everything I thought I'd do today, this certainly wasn't on the list," she murmured to herself and made her way up the stairs leading to the cockpit.

The cockpit itself was fairly spacious leading up to the front where two chairs sat side by side, each possessing its own set of controls.

Ahsoka found Harry sitting in the left seat, going through what looked like the standard pre-flight checks. For the briefest of moments she considered waiting for him to finish before asking for permission to sit down, but dismissed the thought a second later.

"You know those aren't mandatory, right?" Ahsoka said as she dropped down into the co-pilot's chair beside Harry, only to blink as she found it to be surprisingly comfortable—so comfortable that she couldn't resist the urge to bounce a few times in it.

"I know, I just like the routine," Harry admitted as he took hold of the flight controls and brought the ship into the air. Another few buttons pressed saw the large angular wings on either side of the ship shifting down and becoming parallel to the body of the craft.

Ahsoka looked out of the cockpit in time to see the beginning of their descent down the gargantuan ventilation shaft. A display near the middle of the control board showed their current level of descent and after a few seconds ticked down to Level 1312.

"What's the actual reason you want to go down there?" Ahsoka finally asked. "Can't you just find out whatever it is you're looking for on the Holonet?"

Harry glanced over at Ahsoka briefly, before punching a few more buttons and setting the ship onto autopilot and swivelled his chair to face her. "What do you know about Coruscant's history?"

"Just the basic stuff," Ahsoka admitted. "It was the origin world for humanity and all the sub-races that have descended from them—and that it's been the centre of the galactic community for twenty five thousand years."

"That's about as much as most people know." Harry said. "What most people don't know, is that Coruscant isn't the planets original name. Originally it was called Notron, and was originally home to two races, the Zhell, who were the ancient ancestors of modern humans, and the Taung, a grey skinned humanoid race."

"Really?" Ahsoka asked dubiously. "I've never heard of the Taung before."

"That's because two hundred thousand years ago, the Zhell and the Taung went to war, a war that the Taung lost. The Taung fled the planet for the stars, leaving the Zhell the victors."

Harry waved a hand. "Now the masters of the planet, the Zhell began to urbanize everything, and over the next hundred thousand years their cities grew and grew until they covered every inch of the planet at which point they renamed their new ecumenopolis; Coruscant."

Ahsoka for her part, while she found it mildly interesting, couldn't quite get a grip on why the young man in front of her was so interested. It was truly ancient history.

Harry chuckled, oblivious to her thoughts. "To be honest, I think they originally named the planet spanning city itself Coruscant, and the name eventually came to be synonymous with the planet."

Ahsoka found him looking at her expectantly. "That's… fascinating, really it is." She said. "But, it doesn't explain why you want to go down to Level 1."

Harry blinked. "Didn't I say?"

"No, you didn't."

"Oh," Harry shook his head. "Well, you see, I have a rather unpopular theory that is considered, depending on the historian to range from outlandish to outright heretical."

Ahsoka thought he was exaggerating. "Alright, I'll bite," she said. "What's your theory?"

"I believe that human race did not originate on Coruscant."

Ahsoka let out a bark of laughter. "Is that it?" she asked. "From the way you were talking it up I expected something crazier."

Harry smiled in faint amusement and swivelled back toward flight controls. "Like I said, it's just a theory."

"A theory you want to prove by heading to Level 1 and seeing what's down there," Ahsoka said with a slow nod. "Doesn't it seem unlikely that you'll find anything that'll link with your theory? You just said that Coruscant was finished a hundred thousand years after the Tang—"

"Taung," Harry corrected.

"Right, the Taung, got kicked off the planet. I can't imagine anything that could still be intact after all that time."

"You're right," Harry agreed. "Any proof of my theory would be impossible to find down there. The only places that would potentially have any information would be something like a museum, and considering Coruscant spans the entire planet, finding one would be like looking for a needle in a hay stack. Not to mention that a lot of the lowest levels have probably decayed and entire zones have probably collapsed."

Ahsoka's brow furrowed as she looked across at the messy haired human beside her. "Then why?"

"Because I'm not looking for proof of my theory," he stated. "I'm looking for something else."

"If you're not looking to prove your theory, then what are we going down there to find?"

"I don't know."

Ahsoka stared at Harry for a long moment before she exhaled slowly. She closed her eyes and wondered why she had agreed to go along with him. "If you don't know what you're looking for, how do you expect to find it?"

"I'll know it when I see it," Harry said confidently, looking aside at Ahsoka and flashing her a smile, before he turned his attention back cockpit window.

She wished she shared his confidence.

Ahsoka turned her gaze outward and found herself watching as the lights that lined the walls of the ventilation shaft climbed up and out of their vision, and the world outside the cockpit steadily became darker and darker as they entered a section that was no longer being serviced.

She really wished she shared his confidence—or that she had her Lightsaber again. Either would have been fine as far as she was concerned.

* * *

 **Generally shy away from doing 'author notes' since I think they inflate wordcount pointlessly, but I figure, what the hell, am I right? Shout out to kathryn518 for their great story 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' which this opens in similar fashion to. This is a break from my usual style of staying firmly inside the main characters head, and is told from other peoples POV. It will be mainly Ahsoka's, barring certain things, such as the prologue.**

 **As always, I'm open to suggestions and criticisms, so if you have them, hit me with 'em.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

 _16:02:17 GrS_

 _CORUSCANT, Core_

The descent into darkness went quicker once they passed the busier levels and it wasn't long before Harry and Ahsoka found themselves swallowed up by darkness—the only break in which seemed to be the ship's internal lighting.

The only sign of progress was the display that showed how far they had gone down. It currently read Level 215 under a gratuitous amount of flashing red warnings.

The warnings said that the ship had descended too far into the depths of Coruscant, and that by continuing on, they absolved the Republic of any responsibility to rescue them.

At least, that was the jist of it. The actual warning had been several hundred pages long and had been dismissed by Harry the moment it came up without so much as a care or glance.

Ahsoka found herself staring across at the pilot beside her. He wasn't so much an enigma wrapped in a mystery as he was a peculiarity—an oddity. They hadn't spoken since somewhere around Level 1000 and had fallen into a silence that was neither amicable nor awkward.

Her eyes flickered down to the clothes he wore again and she found herself biting her bottom lip. They were definitely the same type of clothes worn by the Serenno nobles—by Count Dooku, except, they were far too small to be the Sith Lord's.

Harry was nowhere near as tall and imposing as the fallen Jedi.

In retrospect, it seemed far more likely that the young man beside her had gone to Serenno and taken them from a younger noble.

The ship on the other hand was another story. A few months ago there had been an uproar when a bunch of criminal syndicates had banded together and attacked Sundari, the capital city of Mandalore and the terrorist group known as Death Watch had swooped into aid their estranged home world.

Ahsoka hadn't been told the full details; they had been swept under the rug and the only Jedi that had been involved had been Obi-wan Kenobi, who had been tight lipped about the whole affair.

All she had known was that something terrible had happened, and that the Duchess Satine Kryze—a fervent believer in peace and pacifism—had been deposed by Death Watch and later on had been murdered in the middle of a power struggle between factions within Death Watch.

Finally, Ahsoka got sick of the silence and asked, "Were you there on Sundari when Death Watch took over?"

Harry didn't answer straight away, and for a few seconds, Ahsoka wasn't sure that he would. "I was."

"Could you…" Ahsoka hesitated for a moment, "Tell me what happened to the Duchess?"

She saw Harry still briefly, before he relaxed and turned his head toward her. "I could," he said.

Ahsoka bit down on her bottom lip. "Tell me."

"Alright." Harry nodded. "Officially, the Black Suns and the Pyke criminal syndicates invaded Mandalore, Duchess Satine did nothing, and Death Watch rode in to save the day, after which the Duchess supposedly ran away." His nose crinkled in distaste. "Only to return days later to kill Pre Vizsla, the leader of Death Watch. She was arrested and a few days later, under 'unclear circumstances' was killed in an attempt to flee with former Death Watch rebels."

"I kno-knew Duchess Satine," Ahsoka said with a frown. "She would never have killed anyone, it went against who she was. What really happened?"

"Since their exile from Mandalore, Death Watch had roamed the galaxy and during their travels, they came across two…" He fell silent and struggled for a moment to find the correct words. "Individuals who joined with them and together they began a crusade to bring together enough forces to stage a coup of Mandalore."

Ahsoka nodded slowly, stopping as she heard a rumbling groan of metal straining from within the darkness outside the ship. She glanced over to the display which told her that they had reached Level 150.

"Death Watch brought the organized filth of the galaxy to Mandalore and made a show about defeating and capturing them, winning public favour in the face of Satine, whose government had not been prepared for an invasion."

Harry gave a faint chuckle. "As despicable as an act as it was, I can't help but be impressed," he admitted. "I told you before, didn't I? That I had a history with terrorist groups with death monikers? I can't help but wonder what would have happened if they had attempted something similar back on my world."

Ahsoka seized on that. "Which is what?"

"A planet called Earth," Harry said with a smile.

"I've never heard of Earth."

Harry's smile turned a bit sad. "No, you wouldn't have. I don't believe it's known to either the Republic or the Confederacy." He shook his head.

"Death Watch swooped in and saved the day secretly imprisoned Satine, spinning a tale of her running away."

Harry frowned. "The… individuals I spoke of, they were double crossed by Vizsla and imprisoned. Unfortunately for him, they broke out and the leader of the two defeated him in single combat."

Harry regarded Ahsoka for a moment. "Do you know anything of ancient Mandalorian custom?"

Ahsoka shook her head.

"If you challenge a Mandalorian in single combat and beat them, their soldiers are honour-bound to follow you." Harry looked troubled as he continued. "They took over Mandalore and placed a puppet upon the throne."

"The two people you keep mentioning," Ahsoka said intently. "You never mention them by name."

Harry let out a faint chuckle. "Sorry, yes, I believe their names were Maul and Savage." He waved a hand. "Either way, through various circumstances Satine eventually managed to escape and sent out a distress call, to which a single Jedi answered."

"Obi-wan," Ahsoka murmured softly.

Harry regarded Ahsoka curiously. "That's right, do you know him?"

Ahsoka hesitated, before nodding. "He was the former master of a… friend of mine, another Jedi named Anakin."

"I see," Harry said with a slow nod. "Yes, Jedi Kenobi came to Mandalore to rescue Satine and defeat the two known as Maul and Savage. Except…"

"Except?"

"Except, it was a trap that had been prepared by Maul, who captured Kenobi and murdered Satine in front of him," Harry said with a grimace.

Silence fell.

Ahsoka stared at the green eyed human in front of her. It felt like her stomach had vanished into a black hole. She had known that Master Kenobi and Duchess Satine had been very close, she couldn't have imagined the pain he must have felt that seeing her killed in front of him—because of him—caused.

Ahsoka had trouble with straying from the tenets of the Jedi Order, which taught that rational thought, patience and benevolence were to be held and dark emotions such as hate, anger and fear were to be purged.

By her very nature she was a passionate person, something that had been encouraged by her once master, Anakin and made holding to the code hard at times.

That Kenobi had managed to hold his composure and had let no emotions show in the time since Satine's death, it showed a strength of will and commitment to the tenets that she could scarcely comprehend.

But then, perhaps that was why Jedi were encouraged not to form attachments. Such was the road to the dark side.

Ahsoka was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn't notice that they had stopped moving.

"We've arrived," Harry said, his voice quiet.

Ahsoka looked up at the cockpit window and frowned. There was only darkness as far as she could see. A glance down at the displays showed that they, had in fact, reached Level 55.

"We're not at Level 1 yet," Ahsoka said, her brow furrowed. "We're not even close."

"This is as far as the ship can go down." Harry stated, and gestured toward the descend display which showed a greyed out section below the ship.

Ahsoka frowned and shifted forward in her seat, accessing the starship's diagnostics. "That's...that can't be right. According to the ship's sensors there's several levels worth of duracrete beneath us." Her eyes widened. "Not to mention… everything that's ever fell down here. I'm registering countless shipwrecks beneath a sea of sewage." Her nose crinkled. "Gross."

Ahsoka shook her head. "There's no way we could get through that even if we blasted our way through," she said as she looked over to Harry.

"If there is a will, there is a way," Harry disagreed with a smile. "Sometimes the way forward, requires a step back and observation."

Ahsoka just stared at Harry blankly. "Are you trying to be purposefully cryptic, or do you just have a talent for it? I've met Jedi Masters more straight forward than you are."

"What?" Harry blinked, and then let out a small laugh with a shake of his head. "What I meant was, maybe we should head back up and use a spotlight to check for access to the closest level and see if we can find a way from there."

"Was that so hard to say?" Ahsoka asked skeptically, unable to help but grin.

Harry considered. "Well, it took longer to say, so, yes?"

Ahsoka rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the ship's controls. "Either way, it's a good idea." She thought it was a bit weird that Harry suggested using a spotlight instead of the ship's sensors to locate a way out, though she didn't say anything about it.

A few seconds later the ship's display showed a large corroded gap in the ventilation shaft a hundred or so meters above them, large enough for the ship to slip through. She relayed the information to Harry who beamed.

"Good work," he praised her and immediately engaged the ship's repulsor lifts, sending it rising up.

"It should be over there," Ahsoka said, pointing toward a large patch of darkness that was a tiny bit darker than the surrounding area.

"Got it," Harry said and glanced over the controls for a brief second before hitting a few switches.

Ahsoka squinted as a pair of spotlights came to life at the nose of the ship, burning away the darkness and revealing a massive gap in the side of the ventilation shaft, beyond which was empty darkness.

She glanced over at Harry. "Last chance to turn back," she pointed out.

Harry glanced toward her and grinned. "Not on your life," he said as he engaged the thrusters and maneuvered the ship through the gap in the ventilation shaft.

"That's what concerns me," Ahsoka said dryly before turning her attention back to the hole they were slipping through.

Darkness spread out before them. The powerful spotlights at the front of the craft they were in barely made a dent.

"What do the sensors say?" Harry asked, glancing over to Ahsoka.

A glance down told her all she needed to know. "It's filled with duracrete in here as well. Scans show that there are whole structures encased in the stuff," she admitted. "If you tilt the ship down you should be able to see the bottom, it's not too far down."

Harry didn't respond, and a second later Ahsoka felt the ship shift down, and to her surprise, the wings rise up, or rather, she realized, the fuselage was what had tilted, the wings themselves had remained parallel with the ground.

For the first time, she saw something in the darkness.

Instead of the inky black, she found herself looking at an endless plain of dark grey scattered with large mounds of varying colours of debris, broken up only by the occasional monolithic support structure that stretched up into the darkness above them to the support the humongous weight of the city above.

Harry let out a low whistle.

Ahsoka couldn't help but agree. She'd lived on Coruscant for the majority of her life, and though she had experience as far down as Level 1313, and though she had an academic knowledge of just how far down Coruscant went, realizing that she was seeing a level of Coruscant that had not seen the daylight in countless eons was humbling in and of itself.

A level that at some point the governing body of Coruscant had decided to seal off with enough duracrete to bankrupt a lesser planet.

It wasn't too long before they finally came across what they were looking for.

"There, up ahead," Harry said as he began to bring the ship down closer to the surface level.

Ahsoka peered out and found herself looking at a rather… impressively sized gap in the duracrete which, the closer they got was looking less like a hole that had been chewed away by the duracrete worms, and more like a gaping chasm.

"One small step."

Ahsoka looked at Harry. "Pardon?"

Harry shook his head and smiled. "Sorry, it's tradition." Without another word he pushed the controls forward and the ship swooped down nose first toward the chasm, the spotlights illuminating the way forward.

Unfortunately, the chasm began to rapidly taper, the sides getting tighter and tighter until it became a tight tunnel, leading further down into the Duracrete.

Ahsoka found herself impressed as Harry managed to navigate the duracrete tunnel. There were few pilots that she knew of that were capable of such a feat, and the majority of them were Jedi.

A sudden finding of steel against duracrete, however, ended that and she couldn't help but smile to herself as the young man beside her let out a sound of frustration.

Ahsoka tried to hide her smile, but to no avail. "You were doing pretty well there for a while," she complimented.

Harry's eyes narrowed slightly at her and he drew the craft to a halt. "You want to have a go?" Harry asked. "I'd like to see you do any better."

Ahsoka raised an eyebrow at the challenge and said nothing as she reached forward and transferred control of the ship to her. She took a calming breath and focused, drawing upon the force. A second later they lurched forwards as she kicked in the accelerator.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Harry's eyes widen and his body tense.

For her part, Ahsoka was barely able to hold back a grin as the ship began to twist and turn through the cavernous tunnels, at times, barely managing to squeeze through the gaps.

So engrossed in flying the ship and following the flow of the force, that Ahsoka wasn't prepared for the tunnel to end, and for the ship to fly out into open air once more.

The surface of the next level approached more rapidly that she expected, and it was only through reflex that she managed to pull up in time to avoid crashing the ship into the dilapidated ruins of the new floor.

Ahsoka let out a long breath and flashed Harry a smile. "Piece of cake," she said smugly as she pulled back on the throttle and brought the ship into a slow cruise.

Harry stared at her, his lips parted, and eyebrows risen. "That… was actually quite impressive," he admitted. "How the bloody hell did you do that?"

"Just a small force trick," Ahsoka said confidently, "Nothing really impressive."

Harry blinked, once. "You're a Jedi?" he asked, sounding surprised.

Ahsoka looked back at Harry, equally surprised. She hesitated for a moment. "You didn't know?"

Harry shook his head.

She wasn't sure how she felt about that. Over the course of the Clone Wars as Anakin's padawan, she knew that she had gained a certain amount of acclaim. Certainly her trial may have tainted some of it, but certainly she was known.

"Why… did you offer me a ride then?" Ahsoka asked.

Harry shrugged a shoulder. "Like I said, you looked lost and I figured I'd ask what was wrong." He paused and his brow furrowed. "Were you the Jedi that was on all those broadcasts a month ago?"

Ahsoka grimaced and nodded.

"Huh…" Harry leaned back in his seat. "Go figure." He shook his head. "Sorry, I thought you looked familiar, but I didn't want to presume," he said honestly. He paused, before confiding in Ahsoka. "I'm not very good at differentiating other species outside of individuals I know well."

Ahsoka stared at Harry for a long moment, before letting out a laugh and shaking her head. "At least you can admit it," she said mildly.

"I'm working on it," Harry said defensively.

Ahsoka smiled. "I'm sure you are, but aren't we getting side tracked?"

"Oh, right," Harry said and shook his head once, before turning his attention back to the world outside the ship.

Ahsoka's gaze held on Harry for a few more seconds before she turned her attention forward, sparing a quick glance down to the display. "It looks like we're on Level 35."

Beside her Harry nodded and a moment later the fuselage dipped down again, allowing them an easier view of the world beneath.

Under them a world filled with massive machines and pipes laid itself out. What was once sleek metal was now crusted in a thick layer of metallic sediment.

"Some levels on Coruscant are entirely composed of machines like this," Ahsoka explained to Harry as she saw his expression and gestured out the window toward a massive pipeline that rose up into the ceiling of the level. "I think that's a water pipe," she stated. "I remember reading that Coruscant's oceans were drained and stored beneath the mantle at one point in the past. "I'm not sure if it's still functional," she admitted, "But… if it isn't."

Harry looked aside at Ahsoka, surprised. "If it isn't," he continued, thoughtfully. "…If it isn't it'll lead all the way down to Level 1. You know, you're proper brilliant, you really are," he said admiringly. "I would never have thought about that."

Harry gestured to the controls. "Do you think the sensors can determine if it's still in use?" he asked.

"If we get close enough." Ahsoka nodded.

The ship realigned a moment later and took off toward the pipeline in the distance.

"You know," Harry remarked as the massive pipe overtook the cockpits field of view. "I'm starting to see a theme repeating here. Everything seemed to be huge on Coruscant. You know, back on my planet there was a place that claimed that 'Everything was bigger' there. If they saw Coruscant they'd have had an aneurysm."

Ahsoka nodded to herself and focused the ship's sensors on the pipe in front of them. "Looks… empty," she said after a moment. "Looks like there hasn't been any water in there for a few thousand years."

"Are there any holes we can use to get in?" Harry asked, glancing aside at Ahsoka. "I can't see any."

Ahsoka shook her head. "No, the entire thing is still solid. I don't think even a million years of wear and tear could compromise it." She paused and considered. "This thing has weapons on board doesn't it?"

"Probably," Harry said. "I've never used them, so I wouldn't know how to."

"Good thing I'm here then, isn't it?" Ahsoka said with a smirk. She lifted a hand up and pointed to a display that switched to a detailed hologram of the pipe in question. "According to the scans there are structural weak points that we should be able to blast through."

A few more button presses saw the hologram zoom in on a specific section that looked different from the surrounding area. "These parts here and here were shut at some point, but they're made of weaker material than the rest."

"By all means," Harry said, gesturing toward the pipeline.

Ahsoka took control of the ship without hesitation and primed the ship's laser cannons as she locked onto the target in front of them. "Fire away," she murmured out of habit as she pulled the proverbial trigger.

The front section of the ship responded with a burst of incandescent lasers that cut through the darkness. The lasers aim was true, and a moment later a muted explosion lit up the dark level before fading away in a cloud of debris and disintegrated metal particles.

The cloud slowly dispersed, revealing a fresh new hole into the pipeline, just wide enough for the ship to slip through.

Before Harry could return flight control to himself, Ahsoka grinned and pushed down on the throttle, accelerating forward and slipped through the gap and pushed the ship into a dive.

"By all means," Harry said with an amused smile. "Go ahead and take control. I insist."

"Well, if you insist," Ahsoka said levelly and continued the descent, keeping an eye on the depth display that began to quickly count down.

Less than a minute later, the ship came to a halt, the display reading Level 1, though the pipeline itself continued to go further and further down, the spotlights unable to traverse the full depth that they continued on to.

Ahsoka didn't hesitate to prime the laser cannons, and a second later a second explosion rocked the ship, more intense than the first due to the close proximity to the blast and the closed off space.

This time, Ahsoka didn't wait for the debris to clear and pushed the ship forward through the gap she knew to be there.

The ship shot out of the dust cloud as the debris rained down, out into the lowest level of Coruscant.

It was everything that Ahsoka thought it would be.

Dark, empty and ominous.

"…Welcome to Level 1," Harry murmured beside her as he took control of the ship and maneuvered it down to get a better look, directing the spotlights at the world below.

From out of the darkness, spires of ancient construction rose up in varying states of dilapidation ranging from completely collapsed to surprisingly intact, though they were few and far in-between.

Ahsoka stared out at the vast sprawling city beneath them as their ship quietly passed over. She could scarcely believe that she was looking at the original city of Coruscant. It was like a window into the past, a world that existed hundreds of thousands of years ago.

"Say, does the ship have a Holorecorder?" Ahsoka asked suddenly, looking up at Harry, only to find him staring intently out at the ghost city below, his eyes searching feverishly—desperately for something.

"Never mind," Ahsoka muttered as she began to look for herself. A minute later she found it and directed the capture device to the city below.

"I see something," Harry said suddenly and the ship began to accelerate forward, only to stop after several seconds.

"What is it?" Ahsoka asked, looking aside at Harry.

"The architecture here, it's different then the surrounding areas," Harry pointed out. "It looks more dated, like it wasn't ever updated along with the rest." He flashed Ahsoka a grin.

Ahsoka peered down at the area illuminated below, and sure enough it didn't fit in with the surrounding area. Whereas buildings around it were—despite the advanced state of disrepair—sleek and angular, the section in question was rather blocky and oddly shaped, carving a swath through the city section which seemed to continue on around it as if it wasn't even there.

"And," Ahsoka prompted him. "It's a bit odd, yeah, but what's special about that?"

Harry shook his head. "It's difficult to explain, but I need to get down there." He declared and peered out at the surrounding buildings. "Maybe we can land on one of them," he mused and glanced at Ahsoka. "What do you think, could we do that? Would they collapse?"

Ahsoka stared. "Are… you kidding?" She said in disbelief. "You want to actually get out of the ship and go down there? Remember the part about where we discussed the monsters down here?"

Harry waved a hand dismissively. "Come on, no one's been down here for a long time, and anything that was once alive is probably dead. Can you imagine anything surviving down here? I sure can't."

Ahsoka bit down on her bottom lip and glanced out of the cockpit at the world below them. "Still."

"Look," Harry said with a smile. "You can stay with the ship, but I need to go down there and nothing is going to stop me."

Ahsoka sighed. "Can you at least tell me what you're looking for?"

Harry shook his head. "Like I said—"

"It's difficult to explain." Ahsoka interrupted him. "Yes, you said that already." She looked at him for a long moment. "If you're going to go down there, I'm not going to let you go by yourself," she said finally.

Harry beamed at her. "Brilliant," he said, before gesturing to one of the surrounding buildings. "So, you think we can land on one of them?"

Ahsoka shook her head. "Not a chance, the ship's weight would crush any of the buildings down here. But that doesn't mean we can't keep the engine on and use the repulsor lifts to keep it hovering just above one."

"Could you…" Harry gestured toward the controls.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. "Sure thing," she said before once more taking control and directing the ship down to one of the larger building tops, carefully lowering the ship until it was scarcely an inch above the rooftop. "There," she said.

"Absolutely brilliant you are," Harry said happily as he hopped out of his seat and stepped around it, making his way out of the cockpit and down into the aft section of the starship.

Ahsoka shook her head, unable to believe what she was about to do. Coming this far down was suicidal enough, but venturing out into the darkness of Level 1—where who knows what laid in wait—was a whole new level of crazy, even for her.

"Wait up," Ahsoka called out. "At least find a glowrod or something before you run off!" she protested as she heard the ramp begin to lower.

Ahsoka quickly hopped out of her seat and gave chase. She caught up with Harry just in the cargo hold. She saw him holding a glass sphere in one hand—where he had gotten it, she didn't know, nor its purpose.

"Come on," Harry encouraged her and with a skip in his step, he headed down the ramp.

"This is a really bad idea," Ahsoka warned Harry, but none the less followed him down onto the ancient rooftop. Her nose crinkled as the oppressively stale air of Level 1 made itself known to her.

Ahsoka saw Harry standing by the edge of the building that they had 'landed on' and watched as he drew his arm up, and with a mighty throw, tossed the glass orb in his hand out over the peculiar area of architecture.

"Why did you…" Ahsoka trailed off as she watched the orb curve through the air, a spark flickering to life and growing bigger and brighter until it became blinding.

Ahsoka shut her eyes tight and looked away. After a few seconds the glow seemed to die down, and another glance revealed that the tiny glass orb had turned into a miniature sun and hung in the air where it had been thrown.

"That's a bit better isn't it?" Harry asked, turning toward Ahsoka and flashing her a smile and turning his gaze out over edge.

"What is it?" Ahsoka couldn't help but ask as she headed over to the edge where Harry stood, and peeked over the down to the now brightly lit ruins.

"Doesn't have a name," Harry said with a smile as he stared down at the ruins. "But if it did, Sun in a can would work, wouldn't it?"

"It wasn't a can," Ahsoka said. "Did you make it?"

Harry considered the question.

Ahsoka personally didn't think it was a question that needed considering.

"I suppose so." Harry said and shook his head. "But that's not important now is it? What's important is down there." He didn't wait for Ahsoka to respond and a second later he hopped over the edge, landing on a pile of rubble and quickly making his way down to the street level.

Ahsoka held in a choice few words as she watched the young human make his way down. She stepped over to the edge and hopped down, following after Harry before she lost sight of him.

Or, at least she tried to. By the time she touched down on the street he had already vanished into one of the buildings he had been so interested in.

"Great, just great." Ahsoka grumbled to herself, a scowl etching itself onto her face as she began to follow the footprints that Harry had left in the inch thick dust on the ground. As she did, she couldn't help but look around at the brightly lit ruins of what had, at one point in the long past, had been a bustling city filled to the brim with people.

A few feet away, Ahsoka noticed the gutted remains of an ancient aircar. All that remained was the frame that was caked in the same ashen crust as everything else.

She reached out and ran her finger down the side, revealing a rusted red colour beneath it. She wiped her dust covered digit against her pants leg, before continuing to walk up along the street.

"This building is a bust." Harry stepped out of the buildings window a second later, a disappointed look on his features. "You found anything?"

"I don't even know what you're looking for," Ahsoka said, her voice exasperated. "You didn't tell me."

"Oh, right." Harry said. "Never mind then." He made a beeline to the next building without another word.

Ahsoka glared at the back of his messy head of black hair until he darted into another building, before letting out a sigh. "Why did this seem like a good idea?"

Ahsoka snorted as she remembered. "Oh right," she said, her voice sarcastic. "It was this or try my luck not being drugged and sold by smugglers." She kicked at a nearby mound of dust, causing it to explode into a dusty cloud.

Ahsoka froze as she felt something move behind her and spun around, only to find nothing. She frowned and called out. "Harry, I think we should get out of here. Something's wrong."

She didn't get a response.

Ahsoka turned back around to the building that Harry had disappeared into and quickly made her way inside, alert and feeling on edge as she stretched out with her senses. Long shadows stretched out over the various shapes in the building, cast by the artificial sun that Harry had tossed up.

She slowed as she entered the building and stilled. Like all of those species, she had a pair of hollow horns atop her head that provided a passive form of echolocation that provided an enhanced sense of spatial awareness.

She couldn't sense any movement within the building which meant one of two things. Either Harry wasn't in the building anymore… or he was, and wasn't moving.

"How could this get…" Ahsoka stopped herself from finishing her sentence.

It didn't help.

The light illuminating the ruins began to begin to dim and Ahsoka began to feel things moving in the growing dark.

Ahsoka let out a soft sigh as the last light died away and she found herself in perpetual darkness. "This sucks," she muttered and turned around, heading back out of the building and into the streets.

A dozen or so meters away she heard glass shattering.

Ahsoka debated the finer points of not shouting out and trying to find Harry as she began to feel the movement grow closer.

She cursed herself.

"Harry!" Ahsoka shouted out as loud as she could. "If you can hear me, we need to get out of here! Where are you?"

A response came from the dark in the form of wailing screeches that sounded a lot closer than Ahsoka was comfortable with.

The former padawan shuddered as more screeching followed.

"Harry!" Ahsoka shouted out again a bit more desperately before spitting out a curse and turning toward the building where the ship was parked and breaking out into a sprint.

The things in the dark were upon her.

Though she could not see, Ahsoka could feel them, and hear them, the rapid movement and scurrying.

Ahsoka jumped up onto the top of the aircar that she had come across on the way, and drew upon the force, launching herself toward the side of one of the buildings, narrowly avoiding one of the creatures.

She heard a satisfying series of thuds as they crashed into the car, followed by more screeches, but she didn't stop as she continued to draw upon the force and launched herself off the side of the building, to another, and another—only for the buildings side to fall away under the force of her next jump.

Ahsoka let out a shout of panic as she tumbled through the air, the sound of it masked by the crumbling groan of the collapsing building and her unseen pursuers.

She was helpless to fight it as gravity took hold and brought her back down to street level. Her feet had touched the ground for less than a second before they were upon her. Cold clamy hands clawed at her, tearing at the clothes she wore and scratching her exposed skin.

"Get off me!" Ahsoka snarled as she lashed out violently.

The creatures let out screeches of pain as her fists and feet hit them with all the force she could muster, but it wasn't enough. There were too many of them and more were coming.

Ahsoka drew upon the force desperately before releasing it in a concussive wave with a shout, blowing away the creatures, granting her a brief reprieve, even as she felt more climb over the bodies of the fallen.

The last thing Ahsoka remembered was feeling something flying through the air toward her, a sharp pain against the back of her head and nothing.

Ahsoka had no idea how long it had lasted for, but eventually she found herself waking up to a horrid scent and pain.

"Ow," Ahsoka moaned out as the back of her head throbbed. She slowly opened her eyes and after a few seconds her eyes began to focus and she found herself looking at a large bonfire.

That in itself was not particularly peculiar, what was, however, was that the flames were interlaces with licks of green and that surrounding it were things.

Things with putrid, pale loose skin that resembled the flesh of bloated corpses. Their heads were no better, covered with scraggly, dirty tuffs of matted hair, lipless mouths filled with nightmarish teeth and what was more, where there should have been eyes, there were bulges, underneath which something was squirming.

Ahsoka recoiled in disgust at the sight, only to find that she couldn't move her arms. A glance at them informed her that they were currently bound by lengths of rope, and that she, in fact, was both suspended in the air and very, very naked. The last memories she had before blacking out surged through her mind and she let out a few choice words.

"About time you woke up," A voice said from beside her.

Ahsoka's head swivelled to the side, and she found, to her muted surprise, that Harry was beside her, in a similar predicament.

More memories came rushing to the surface and Ahsoka glared. "Where did you go?" she demanded to know heatedly.

A guilty look passed over Harry's features. "I had to use the rest room." He said. "I snuck out the back of one of the buildings and relieved myself, it felt a bit wrong to do so inside." He jerked his head toward the creatures. "They caught me with my pants down, quite literally."

Somehow Ahsoka doubted that was the whole truth, but now wasn't the time to try to call him on it.

Ahsoka's glare didn't let up for a few more seconds. "Either way, you should have told me," she informed him heatedly. "I told you that it was dangerous down here!" She said, her voice rising a few octaves as she did.

"I'm sorry," Harry said, looking suitably ashamed.

Ahsoka let out a huff and looked down at the creatures. "It's too late for that now. What has been going on? What have they been doing?"

"Oh that's simple," Harry said and nodded down toward them. "They've tied us up here as an offering to their Ma'kugargh, their god and lit the bonfire to attract his attention to us."

Ahsoka stared blankly at Harry. "How do you know that?"

Harry shrugged a shoulder. "One of the bigger ones was quite vocal earlier in why they weren't allowed to eat us."

"You can understand them?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah."

Ahsoka shook her head in disbelief, not willing to question such a ludicrous statement. "Tell them to let us down then! Try to bargain with them!"

"I said I understood what they were saying. I never said I could replicate their speech, or that they understood Basic." Harry shook his head. "I mean, have you heard their speech? I don't think I could even hit those notes on a good day."

Ahsoka scowled and opened her mouth, only to stop as the creatures below began to screech loudly at each other and scurry away from the bonfire, vanishing from her vision. "What did they say?" Ahsoka asked, looking back at Harry.

"The Great God Ma'kugargh approaches."

There was a thunderous rumble in the distance.

"I'm not a betting man," Harry began to say, "but if I was, I'd say that was Ma'kugargh."

Ahsoka's eyes widened and she began to struggle with renewed vigour against the binds that held her in the air. She pulled with all her might, attempting to snap them to no avail.

Ahsoka quickly noticed that Harry wasn't attempting to free himself, and looked rather pensive. "How can you be so calm?" she asked skeptically.

Harry blinked rapidly and shook his head. "Oh, sorry, zoned out there for a second. I was just thinking about how no one had tried to sacrifice me in a while."

The sound of the creature's screeches echoed off in the distance.

"Well now," Harry said. "I think that's our cue to get out of here as well."

"Oh NOW you want to get free?" Ahsoka snapped out as she twisted and writhed inside her binds, attempting to loosen them to gain even a little bit more room to move, or leverage to escape.

"Say, you were a Jedi right?" Harry said suddenly. "Can't you just, you know, use the force to get us out of here?"

"It's not that simple!"

"Why not?"

Ahsoka glowered. "Because… because be quiet and let me think for a second."

Ahsoka closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. When she opened them again, she began to look at their surroundings critically.

The ropes that held them weren't actually ropes. They were some sort of gelatinous cord that seemed to tighten the more she struggled. Brute force would do her no good, she needed something to cut through it.

Her eyes flickered to the bonfire and she squinted, trying to see what had been laid into it to feed the fire. She felt a rush of triumph as she spied a white hot jagged sheet of metal beneath the flames.

Ahsoka took another calming breath and closed her eyes, reaching out with the force into the bonfire and lifting the metal sheet. She opened her eyes and watched as it slowly floated up, metallic slag dripping off of it and hissing as it splattered the floor. With a twist of her wrist she sent it rocketing toward one of the ropes that suspended her in the air.

Ahsoka gave a whoop of excitement as her aim was true and it sliced through the blackened cord, freeing her left arm. She immediately reached over and gripped the gelatinous goop that clung to her right hand and pulled herself up against it.

"Uh, Ahsoka." Harry said from beside her. "I don't mean to rush you but…"

Ahsoka looked up from what she was doing and froze as, through the thick smoke from the bonfire, she saw it far down the street.

A Rancor.

A massive Rancor.

A massive Rancor with massive tusks.

A massive Rancor with massive tusks drooling what appeared to be bright green toxic sludge.

"That's one ugly bastard," Harry commented offhandedly.

Ahsoka snapped out of her shock and began to pull herself free with renewed energy. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she managed to free herself and dropped to the ground

Ahsoka barely touched the ground before she sprang into action, grabbing the closest thing with an edge. "Hold still!" Ahsoka called out to Harry as she turned toward him and with a little help from the force, launched herself upward, wrapping her legs around his waist to steady herself as she began to cut away at the thick black cords that held him up.

Harry was silent for a few seconds before he spoke. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful," he said. "But we're both very naked and—"

"Shut up!" Ahsoka hissed out, her face burning.

"And," Harry continued, his eyes looking over her shoulder. "I think it's noticed us."

With a vicious yank, Ahsoka tore Harry free of his binds and, clinging tightly to him they dropped down. She used the force to buffer their landing and quickly detached herself from him and turned away.

"Thank you Ahsoka," Harry said with a smile.

"How can you be so calm still?" Ahsoka demanded to know, rounding on Harry and thrusting her arm out toward the Rancor that was lumbering toward them. "Do you not know what that is?"

"It's a Rancor," Harry said with raised eyebrows. "I'm quite aware of what it is, and what it'll do to us if it catches us, which is why it's probably best if we get out of here," he suggested.

The Rancor in question let out a roar that caused the very ground itself to rumble and without warning it suddenly began to move faster toward them.

Harry reached down to Ahsoka's hand. "We should go now," he said quickly and broke out into a sprint away from the bonfire and into the dark.

"We need to get to cover," Ahsoka said quickly as she ran along beside him and pointed toward the nearest building. "In there!" She pulled him along, but as they got closer, the corpse-like creatures appeared from within, screeching at them and hissing.

"Maybe not!"

Ahsoka gritted her teeth and instead reached wrapped her free arm around Harry, drawing upon the force and then jumping high into the air with him. They landed on top of the nearest building she initiated another jump, taking them higher and out of the Rancor's reach as they stumbled onto the roof of the next one.

"Hopefully this will buy us some time," Ahsoka said with a shake of her head as she let go of Harry again. "We need to find the ship and get out of here, right now."

"I'm inclined to agree," Harry admitted and closed his eyes. He opened his eyes a second later. "The ship is over there," he said, lifting a hand up and pointing out into the darkness.

"How can you tell?"

"Magic?" Harry offered.

"This isn't the time for jokes!" Ahsoka snapped at him.

The building began to rumble, and Ahsoka looked up just in time to see the ugly head of the Rancor rise up over the edge of the building, its beady eyes staring right at them.

Ahsoka gritted her teeth and reached deep down inside her, drawing upon all the strength she could muster as she pulled upon the force and thrust her hands out toward the Rancor's head, unleashing the strongest telekinetic blast she could.

The Rancor's head snapped back and it briefly wobbled, before it rounded upon them with a toxic-drool belting snarl.

The thick globs of glowing drool hissed as they splattered the building and ate through the material it was made of.

"Oh… drat."

One of the Rancor's aircar sized hands reached toward them and Ahsoka reacted by pushing Harry out of the way and jumping up onto the outstretched hand.

She didn't miss a beat as she began to quickly run along it toward the tusk covered head.

"Get back to the ship Harry!" Ahsoka shouted out. "I'll distract it while you do!" She felt her heart thudding in her chest as she leapt up over the Rancor's other hand as it came for her and landed on one of the tusks jutting out from the side of its face.

"You would be so dead right now if I had my lightsaber!" Ahsoka shouted hoarsely at the lumbering beast as she continued to duck, weave and jump.

Her efforts were rewarded with a bestial roar as the Rancor managed to gouge its hands on its own tusks. The thrill of triumph that ran through her lasted just as long as it took for the Rancor to begin to erratically swing its head around, trying to get her off.

She underestimated the lumbering beast and in a surprise move, it slammed itself into the building.

Ahsoka let out a cry of pain as she went flying and collided with the side of another building—though she managed to twist in mid-air and avoid snapping her neck. Whatever relief she may have felt at that vanished as the Rancor moved impossibly fast for its size and its gnarled fingers wrapped around her naked body, squeezing her tight enough for her bones to creek.

She struggled, screaming as its fingers curled in on her. She desperately began to draw upon the force and tried to use it to push out against the beasts fingers to get free, but its grip was too strong.

Suddenly, without warning the force shuddered and twisted upon itself desperately, as if trying to escape something nearby.

" _Confringo_."

A massive explosion thundered nearby, followed by a howl of agony from the Rancor that held her in its grip.

The beast stumbled and Ahsoka let out a choked whimper as it slammed her against the nearby building and collapsed. Its fingers unfurled and she tumbled to the ground, hitting her head as she did as she rolled in the thick layer of grime and dirt that covered everything in the forgotten city.

The last thing she saw, through the blurred muck and the pain was Harry, floating down toward her, his silver cloak wrapped around him, flowing with a wind that was not there.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

 _16:02:18 GrS_

 _CORUSCANT, Core_

Ahsoka was beginning to notice a trend as she woke up for the second time that day. Thankfully, unlike the last time, this time she wasn't in pain, nor did she find herself staring at a bonfire surrounded by cannibalistic troglodytes that were attempting to feed her to a sludge belching Rancor.

Instead, she found herself staring at the ceiling of a spaceship, and realized that somehow, someone had carried her back. The someone in question, she noticed sitting in the pilot's chair, unaware that she had woken up.

Out of the cockpit window she saw nothing but darkness.

The last thing she remembered was an explosion and the Rancor's head turning into a visceral mist. She remembered falling, and hitting the ground hard, and Harry floating down toward her.

Ahsoka was about to push herself up and let Harry know she was awake, only to hear a familiar chiming sound that indicated that a holotransmission was being received.

"The heck," Harry muttered from the pilot seat.

Ahsoka cracked an eye open and saw him hesitate for a moment, before he reached out and accepted the transmission.

A tiny blue hologram flickered to life above the ships controls, revealing a cloaked figure whose face could not be seen.

"How did you get this number? Harry asked suspiciously. "I don't even know this number."

The figure in the hologram was silent for a few seconds. "Did you believe that I would not notice your presence?" The holograms voice had a cultured, nasally undertone to it.

Ahsoka saw Harry tense ever so slightly, before he relaxed.

"I take it that this isn't a social call? You dark lord types never seem to make those."

The holographic figures lips curved into a small unpleasant smile. "Quite the opposite, my young abomination. I felt it was far past the time for us to have a face to face chat."

"Careful," Harry said, his voice dry. "You're sending mixed signals. I can't tell if you're trying to be mean or seduce me." He paused and considered. "Or are you playing hard to get?"

"Either way, I assure you, I want your body."

Harry stared. "Alright, you've got me. I have no idea how to respond to that aside from polite rejection."

"That is a shame. I do not take rejection well."

"They never do," Harry said casually, his hand moving to end the call. "If that's all—"

The holographic figure held up a hand. "They are aware of you. They do not know who you are, but they now know that you exist. You were foolish to reveal yourself so close to them."

Harry stared at the hologram silently, his hand still hovering over the button to end the transmission. "Why tell me that?" He asked, his voice laced with suspicion. "What could you possibly gain from letting me know?"

"My dear boy," The cloaked figure's unpleasant smile widened. "Sometimes it is not about gaining things, but preventing others from acquiring them."

The transmission ended.

Ahsoka felt her heart beat faster and faster as she eavesdropped on the conversation between her new… whatever he was, and the figure in the hologram.

"Who was that?" Ahsoka demanded to know as she flung herself up into a sitting position.

Harry blinked and glanced over at her. "Ah, you're awake. How do you feel?"

"Don't change the subject," Ahsoka said heatedly as she stood up. "Who was that just now?"

Harry shrugged a shoulder. "Someone with a significantly over inflated sense of self-worth," he said, before frowning. "I don't know," he admitted.

Ahsoka stared at Harry for a long moment. "I want you to tell me the truth—about everything, right now, or I swear I'll knock you out and drag you to the Jedi myself."

Harry's frown deepened and he turned his seat around to face Ahsoka. "I honestly don't know who he is," Harry repeated. "This is the first time I've ever talked to him, but I'd wager that we both know what he is."

Ahsoka nodded slowly. "He's a Sith," she said. "You really don't know who he was? The way you were talking with him…"

Harry snorted. "I know his type, I'm not going to let some prick too scared to show his own face dictate the flow of conversation."

"I… guess I can accept that," Ahsoka said slowly and after a few seconds made her way to the front of the cockpit, sitting down into the co-pilot seat.

She noticed that Harry was once again dressed in his 'permanently borrowed clothes'. A look down told her that she was wearing her old clothes again as well.

That didn't make sense. Hadn't the creatures taken their clothes? How had they gotten them back?

More questioned began to come up as Ahsoka replayed the events that had happened.

"What happened down there?" She asked finally, looking aside at Harry.

"Do you trust me?"

"No," Ahsoka answered immediately. "I don't trust you at all."

Harry was silent for a long while. "That's fair," he finally said. "I wouldn't trust me after everything that's happened either. So, let's work on that. Ask me whatever you want, and I promise I won't lie."

Ahsoka stared at Harry for a long moment before nodding. "Alright," she said. "Are you Sith?"

"No," Harry responded instantly.

"Do you know any Sith?"

"As in have I met some, or am I regularly acquainted?"

"Both."

"I've met Dooku once before, and I just met that guy right now. I'm not particularly fond of them." Harry said.

"What happened down there?" Ahsoka repeated her earlier question, "I'm not just talking about you 'going to the bathroom'," she said sarcastically. "I mean everything. How did you get our clothes back and how did we get back here?" She hesitated for a moment. "What happened with the Rancor? I felt something that was just... wrong."

Harry winced. "You don't hold back, do you?" he said, before shaking his head. "Short answer; Magic."

Ahsoka wasn't impressed with the short answer. She let Harry know that with a sharp kick to the shin.

"Alright! Alright-Sheesh!" Harry protested and swivelled his chair away from Ahsoka. "I was getting to the long answer," he insisted.

"Out with it, now." Ahoka demanded, rearing her foot up for another kick.

Harry sighed. "When I say magic, you think of backwater cultures mistaking the force for something else, don't you?"

Ahsoka frowned, but nodded. "That's right," she said. "Every civilization that has claimed to use magic in the past has been proven to be the force." She hesitated. "Even Witches of Dathomir use the force, though they don't use it in the same way as anyone else."

Harry nodded. "That's right. So, what would you say this is?" He lifted a hand up and showed her his empty palm. She saw him focus and watched as light sparked to life above it.

Ahsoka stared at the flickering pulse of light curiously. She couldn't feel the force being used at all. "It's just a trick," she said dismissively and reached forward, waving her hand through it. To her surprise she could feel the warmth of it, though that didn't change her opinion.

Harry nodded acceptingly and the light faded. "And this?" He prompted with a wave of his hand.

Ahsoka let out a sound of surprise as she suddenly found herself floating up off her chair. That in itself wasn't the cause of her surprise—no that came from her inability to sense the hand of the force in the action.

"How are you doing this?" Ahsoka, her voice a mixture of wonder and confusion as she briefly floated above her chair, before she was slowly lowered back down.

"The real question you should be asking yourself is how I did this," Harry said as he lifted a hand up. Out of the back of the cockpit something flew into his hand. "Here." He tossed it to Ahsoka.

Ahsoka snatched whatever it was out of the air and as she opened her hand she saw that he had thrown her. "An apple?" She looked back at Harry questioningly.

"Take a bite," Harry insisted.

Ahsoka glanced back down at the piece of fruit in her hand before deciding to humour him. She took a bite, it was the first non-processed piece of food she had eaten in a while. It was delicious.

Ahsoka went for another bite, only for Harry to hold his hand up.

"One moment," he said with a grin and another wave of his hand.

Ahsoka almost dropped the apple as it suddenly began to wriggle and squirm in her hand and quicker than she could react to, it turned into a tiny bird that immediately took flight with a warble of song.

Ahsoka's eyes widened and she coughed, and spluttered, aghast. "What did you do?"

Harry shrugged a shoulder. "Gave you proof," he offered, smiling and held up a hand. The tiny bird swooped down and landed on his open palm and immediately turned back into the half eaten apple that it had once been.

Harry tossed the apple back to Ahsoka.

She caught it once more, and stared down at it in confusion. "But... it was alive, I felt it. How did you do that?"

Harry opened his mouth.

"And don't say magic," Ahsoka interrupted him

Harry almost pouted. "Well it was," he said.

Ahsoka lifted the apple up to her face and took another sniff, before gingerly biting down on it to confirm that yes, it was actually an apple. She chewed on it contemplatively.

She had been fit to correct Harry after the first two demonstrations, but the third was something else. She had felt the bird come to life, seen it take flight, felt it within the force, and then, it had turned back into an apple. That was beyond the force, she had never known any Jedi to be able to replicate that feat.

Everything she knew told her that it was impossible, but then. What she didn't know was vastly greater.

"What else can you do?" Ahsoka asked, looking back up to Harry.

"It would be far easier to list the things I couldn't," Harry said with a faint smile. "Magic is only as limited as one's imagination."

Ahsoka raised an eyebrow, but held back from asking for examples, and instead, began to take inventory of what she knew. She didn't get far before another question brought itself to her attention.

"Back down there," Ahsoka said, a troubled look on her face. "That explosion, that was you, wasn't it? It was magic."

Harry hesitated for a moment, before nodding. "It was," he acknowledged.

Ahsoka fell silent as she remembered how... wrong it had felt at the time. Like something had been clawing and tearing at the force, hurting and wounding it in ways she had never thought possible. It had hurt her, just by her proximity, the sympathetic pain had been overwhelming.

"It felt wrong. It didn't feel anything like what you just did." She tossed the apple back at Harry. "I couldn't feel what you did with the apple, or the light or the levitation. What I felt down there was the force crying out in agony."

Harry looked uncomfortable. "If it's all the same, I'd rather not discuss it."

"You promised," Ahsoka said.

Harry was silent for a long while. "What I did just now," he gestured at the apple in her hand. "That kind of stuff is just parlour tricks. I can do that sort of stuff without a thought or effort. Stronger magic requires… more."

Harry held up a hand, palm up.

Ahsoka watched in muted fascination as something began to appear floating above his hand. It was as if reality was giving way to something else, as if colour was being drained into shape.

By the time it was done, a slim white stick hovered above Harry's hand.

"This is the Elder wand," Harry said. "I used to have another wand, but I don't have it with me anymore, so I've had to rely on this, as much as I would have preferred not to."

He clenched his fist and the wand vanished again.

"What I showed you was an illumination charm, a levitation charm and a demonstration of transfiguration. They were some of the first things I learned to do with magic." He paused. "What happened down there, with the Rancor, when it grabbed you…"

Harry grimaced. "First of all, I want to apologise to you for putting you in danger. I admittedly, underestimated the amount of danger that we were in. I had expected monsters spewing acid and fire, and all those sorts of things. I didn't take into account a half dead midget with a club knocking me out."

"I told you it was dangerous," Ahsoka said flatly, tossing the half eaten apple in her hand at Harry, who caught it without missing a beat.

"What I used down there was called a Blasting Curse. Simply put, it causes things too… explode."

"Yes, I got a close up demonstration of that," Ahsoka said dryly, recalling the Rancor coming down with a sudden case of 'no head'.

"Yes, well," Harry said looking uncomfortable. "It takes a bit more power and focus than I can muster without a wand, so I had to use the Elder wand, and well, it's not exactly a pleasant thing, as you felt."

"That's an understatement," Ahsoka muttered with a shake of her head. "Do you use it often?"

"I try not to use it at all," Harry said with a shake of his head. "I can count the number of times I've had to resort to using it in the last few months on a single hand."

"Don't use it around me again," Ahsoka said seriously. "I can't even put into words how wrong it feels. If I didn't know you I would…" she trailed off.

She didn't know Harry.

She'd only just met him on an apparent whim of his.

"Ahsoka?"

Ahsoka shook her head and pushed those thoughts away for the moment. "Never mind," she said and glanced down toward the controls between them and noticed that they were once more apparently in the ventilation shaft, though it seemed they were heading back up to the surface.

"How did we get back here?"

Harry grinned and opened his mouth.

"Don't even think about saying it," Ahsoka warned him.

This time Harry did pout. "You're no fun at all."

"Well?"

Harry shrugged a shoulder. "After the Rancor stopped being an issue, I picked you up and brought you here using magic to make you lighter. The creatures seemed more interested in eating their dead god than giving chase to us, so it was simply a matter of getting from point a to point b."

Ahsoka accepted that without too much trouble. She'd just seen him turn a piece of fruit into a bird and back again, making someone lighter seemed trivial in comparison—at least she assumed it was.

Which left their clothes.

If she asked, she knew his first response would simply be 'magic'. Based on what he had shown her, there was probably a variety of ways that he could have gotten their clothes back, if they actually were the originals that was.

"Can you turn anything into anything else?" Ahsoka asked.

"Within reason," Harry said with a nod. "It's easier if I know the insides and out of what I'm trying to transfigure though—and the similar they are the easier still."

"So clothes would be no deal at all?"

Harry gave Ahsoka an odd look, before realization seemed to strike him. He chuckled. "The clothes you're wearing are the originals, I summoned them from wherever the creatures had thrown them, and a quick repair charm took care of any wear and tear—along with the literal tearing of course."

Ahsoka raised an eyebrow at that. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," Harry said with a grin.

"And did you just magic them onto me as well?" Ahsoka asked.

Harry blinked, and then, to Ahsoka's surprise, a very, very faint tinge coloured his cheek. "Well, no. That part I had to do the old fashion way."

Ahsoka looked at him for a long second, mulling over how she felt about that. In the end the alternative would have been to lay there naked until she had woken up. "Okay," she finally said.

A look of relief passed over Harry's face and he flashed her a grin.

"So," he began to say. "Have you had any thoughts about where you want to go?"

Ahsoka shook her head. "No," she said. "But I have an idea of where I need to go, even though I don't want to."

Harry gave her a curious look, before understanding slowly dawned on his features. He sighed. "Can't you just send it over the holonet to them?"

"No," Ahsoka said immediately, shaking her head. "Despite my misgivings… this is more important than me, or you," she said firmly. "This is the first time he's ever slipped up and revealed himself."

"Is it that big of a deal?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow, looking troubled. "You guys already knew he existed, didn't you?"

Ahsoka gave Harry a frustrated look. "Well—yes, but that's not the point. Without concrete proof to bring toward the senate, there is only so much that the Jedi Order can do."

"Sounds depressingly familiar," Harry said with a frown as he reclined in his seat. "I had to deal with something similar back on my planet, a while ago anyway. Though it was less 'he existed' and more 'he came back from the dead' that they had a hard time coming to grips with."

Ahsoka gave Harry a sceptical look and only just held back from asking him to repeat that last bit.

Harry fell silent and seemed to become distant after that.

Ahsoka could see that something else was troubling him, and she quickly realized what it was. If she revealed to the Jedi Order the hologram transmission, they'd want to know who it was on the other side of the conversation.

They'd want to know about Harry, and if the presumed Sith Lord was telling the truth, they didn't know about him, at least they hadn't until he had used his magic down below.

Ahsoka let the Sith's words replay in her mind.

They knew he existed, they didn't know who he was.

Did she trust them with that knowledge? Her faith in the Order had taken a significant blow in the aftermath of her trial. What would they do if they found out about Harry and his magic? What would they do to him?

She didn't have the answers.

"Would you be against me showing the Jedi that a holo of that conversation?" She finally asked Harry, glancing over at him.

Harry looked like he was actually considering the question, and it was a while before he spoke. "I have nothing against the Jedi," he said. "I'd prefer not to get involved, but I understand how important that is." He gestured toward the console, "And how significant it is that he contacted me," he paused. "If it really was 'him', that is. He wasn't exactly wearing an 'I am the Sith Lord' t-shirt."

"No, no he wasn't," Ahsoka agreed quietly. "They might dismiss it as inconclusive, or take it as a deception from the Sith. But I don't have control over how they will take it. I can only make sure that they at least see it."

Lights were beginning to appear on the walls outside the ship. A glance down at the display told Ahsoka that they'd finally entered the four digit range again and had passed Level 1046.

Silence fell again inside the cockpit.

Ahsoka felt troubled by the events around her. The force was clouded. She had no real sense of where to go, or what to do. All she had to rely on were her instincts and intuition, both of which told her that it was important that the Jedi High Council saw the transmission, for better or worse.

"I don't suppose you could just summon the Sith Lord?" Ahsoka asked dryly, glancing aside at Harry.

Harry considered the question.

Ahsoka blinked. "Could you?"

Harry shook his head. "I'd have to know who he actually was, and even if I did, it'd depend if he was close enough. There's a limit on how far away you can summon something from, I don't know what it is, but I know it exists."

"That's a shame," Ahsoka said with a sigh as she reclined on her chair.

Before Harry could respond the ship received another incoming transmission, though unlike the first, it came in the form of an official directive.

"We've being ordered to cease ascent and to prepare to be boarded," Harry said as his eyes ran over the display. "Looks like he was telling the truth, someone took notice, and they want to chat."

Through the cockpits glass canopy, Ahsoka could make out a single ship that hovered in place, the belly of it covered with spotlights peering down the shaft, at least one of which was locked onto the ship.

Harry clucked his tongue and opened a channel to the other ship above them. "This is the Golden Snitch, hear you loud and clear, dock when ready."

Ahsoka for her part was paying little attention. She felt a presence close by, someone familiar, who, until recently she had considered a close friend, as well as a mentor.

"Master Plo." Ahsoka whispered under her breath.

"Someone you know, I take it?"

Ahsoka reluctantly nodded. "Y-yes. He was the one who found me on my home planet and brought me to the temple to be trained as a Jedi."

Harry regarded Ahsoka for a long moment. "If you want, you can sit back here and I can go talk to him in the cargo bay. They don't need to know you're here."

Ahsoka bit her lip, seriously considering the offer, before sighing. "No," she said with a shake of her head. "He already knows I'm here. He would have sensed me before I even noticed he was there, he's a proper Jedi Master. Sitting back here would make it seem like I have something to hide—plus he's a member of the Jedi High Council."

Ahsoka let out a bitter laugh. "The force works in mysterious ways."

Harry glanced down at the display which showed that they'd received a docking request. He affirmed it and set the ship into a static position. "They're beginning to dock with the aft airlock," Harry said to Ahsoka and stood up.

Ahsoka watched him pause for a brief moment, before a hand came down to her shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Take your time, I'll entertain them in the meanwhile," he said, flashing her a grin.

"Thanks," Ahsoka mumbled and gave Harry a brief smile, watching as he let go of her shoulder and headed out the cockpit and toward the rear of the ship to greet the Jedi Master and whoever else was there—a squad of Clone Troopers, no doubt.

Ahsoka got up and began to open up and inspect the various compartments throughout the cockpit. It wasn't long before she found what she was looking for and fished out a datacard.

She slid it into the ships computer interface and transferred over a copy of the last holocall that the ship had received. She ejected the card from the machine and took a deep breath, before turning and making her way out of the cockpit.

She heard them talking before she saw them.

"…anomalous reading coinciding on the lower levels of Coruscant coinciding with your ships last known coordinates. The Jedi High Council was hoping that you would be able to provide insight as to what caused it."

Ahsoka's stomach seemed to twist slightly as she heard the deep, wizened voice of her once mentor, but took a breath and continued on, her head held high as she entered the cargo hold.

She saw Harry standing near the middle of the cargo hold, his posture relaxed and open. From where she was she couldn't see his face, but she could see the figure opposite him.

Master Plo hadn't changed at all in the month since she had last seen him. He was still over a foot taller than her, and still had the same… unique facial features that were typical of the Kel Dor.

Despite the fact that his face was masked both by his rebreathing mask, and his goggles, Ahsoka could tell the moment he noticed her. He stilled ever so slightly, and his attention shifted away from the slightly shorter human in front of him.

"Little Soka, it is good to see that you are well."

"Hello Master," Ahsoka said politely as she approached and stopped by Harry's side. "I hope everything is well."

Ahsoka felt his gaze resting heavy upon her, scrutinizing, but not judging as she stood beside the messy haired captain of the ship.

"As well as can be expected," Plo said finally. "As I am sure you are no doubt aware, there was a disturbance felt in the force below in the depths of Coruscant."

The Jedi Master's gaze briefly passed between Ahsoka and Harry. "I must admit, I am surprised to have found you returning from below. Though, I sense that you may be able to illuminate the cause of the distress felt within the force."

She knew the question was coming, even before she stepped out to greet the Jedi Master, yet she still found herself frozen, indecisive and unsure how to respond. Even if she had wanted to divulge the whole truth, without proof from Harry in the form of demonstrating his unique skills, she wouldn't have been taken seriously, and no doubt Plo would see it as an attempt at deceit.

And yet, if she did lie and say that she did not know—which she wasn't certain she wanted to do—he would sense the deception anyway.

Her saviour, once again came in the form of the green eyed boy beside her.

"I can help with that first bit," Harry interjected with a smile, drawing the Jedi Master's attention back to him. "I consider myself a sort of cross between a historian and an archaeologist—a histologist, if you would."

Master Plo didn't have eyebrows, but if he did, Ahsoka imagined that one of them would have risen at Harry's statement. "You are aware that word already has a meaning, which is vastly different to what you intend, do you not?"

Harry opened his mouth to respond.

"Oh, he knows," Ahsoka said with a roll of her eyes, unable to hold back a smile, despite herself.

Harry frowned at Ahsoka. "I don't ruin your jokes," he pointed out.

"I don't have any jokes," Ahsoka pointed out calmly, her lips still curved ever so slightly. "But, if I did, they'd certainly be better than that."

Harry looked affronted at the very notion, and for a second, Ahsoka thought he was going to say something about it, before he stopped, considered and turned his attention back to the rebreather wearing Jedi Master in front of them.

"Now, as I was saying. I wanted to go down to the lower levels of Coruscant, and Ahsoka, being the kind, conscientious, joke-killing girl that she is, decided to come with me due to how dangerous it is down below."

Ahsoka just stared.

Harry pointedly ignored the staring and continued. "Let me tell you, if I hadn't had her with me things would have gone from bad to worse—did you know that there are creatures down there without eyes?"

"The C'thon," Master Plo said with a slow nod. "They are the descendants of criminals who were banished from the surface of Coruscant to its depths long, long ago."

"Is that what they're called?" Harry asked, his eyebrows raising up, before he shook his head. "Well, at any rate, I messed up and they captured Ahsoka and I," he said, his smile widening to the point of showing the whites of his teeth.

Ahsoka groaned internally, knowing exactly what he was about to say.

"—and we woke up to find ourselves being sacrificed to the C'thon's god, which turned out to be a massive mutant Bull Rancor!" Harry exclaimed. "If it wasn't for Ahsoka, we'd both be appetisers, I owe her my life."

Ahsoka barely held back from showing the surprise on her face, though it didn't help.

"I sense that you are omitting something," Master Plo said, his expression well hidden behind his mask and goggles.

Harry snapped his fingers. "Right. We were also both naked at the time."

Even though Ahsoka knew it was coming, her cheeks still burned with embarrassment all the same.

Master Plo didn't react to the new information outwardly. He regarded Harry for the longest time, before finally speaking. "Was this before, or after you were assailed by the C'thon?"

"After," Harry said without hesitation, his smile dimming slightly.

The Jedi Master nodded acceptingly. "Speaking of clothes, I can't help but notice a striking resemblance between your choice of garb, and that of the nobles of Serenno, particularly Count Dooku."

"It's entirely coincidental, I'm sure," Ahsoka said, interjecting before Harry could say another word. "If it is acceptable, Master Plo. I would like to speak to you privately." She glanced past the Jedi Master to the clone troopers who had, so far, remained silent at the rear of the cargo hold.

Ahsoka held the Jedi Master's gaze as he peered down at her, through his goggles, and felt a wave of relief go through her as he nodded his acquiescence. "Very well." He turned toward the troopers behind him. "Please wait for me inside the transport.

The troopers saluted the Jedi Master and within seconds they were gone back through the airlock.

Ahsoka looked at Harry.

Harry looked back. "What?"

Ahsoka gave him a pointed look.

"Oh," Harry said, "You want me to go as well, alright." He turned toward Master Plo. "Nice to meet you." He nodded and left the cargo hold, leaving Ahsoka alone with her former mentor.

Neither spoke for several seconds.

"I am sorry, Little Soka."

Ahsoka couldn't express in words what she felt in that moment. She wanted to scream that it was too late for that, that he should have trusted in her as Anakin did, that he should have stood up for her, but that would do no one any good. All it would do would cause hurt.

"What happened is in the past now," Ahsoka said, more to herself than him.

"I… understand," the Jedi Master said. "In that case, what did you want to discuss in private? I assume it relates to the disturbance that was felt below Coruscant."

"That's right. I…" Ahsoka clutched the datacard in her hand and began to think of how she was going to word what she needed to say.

She took a calming breath, and exhaled.

"I need you to trust me now, as you should have then." Ahsoka said firmly, looking up at Plo. She held out the datacard that she had transferred the record of the holocall onto. "This contains a holorecording. It's very important that you show the High Council its contents."

Ahsoka remained steadfast under the scrutiny of the Jedi Master's gaze. He finally nodded and extended his hand.

Ahsoka handed it over.

Master Plo held it up to inspect. "May I ask its contents?"

Ahsoka shook her head. "I think that it's important that you and the other Council members view it without any external bias and come to your own conclusions."

Master Plo inclined his head. "Very well," he said, and slipped a hand inside his robe, secreting away the datacard and drawing out a small brown pouch and holding it out to Ahsoka. "I also have something for you."

"What is it?" Ahsoka asked, eyeing the pouch with a small amount of curiosity. It was flat, and looked like there wasn't much, if anything inside it.

"Something that belongs to you, which the Order had no right to take," Master Plo said.

Ahsoka held out her hand and her former mentor dropped the pouch onto it.

"Though we may now walk separate paths, know that you do not walk alone."

With that said, Master Plo turned and made his way back toward the airlock. He paused briefly at the threshold. "Good bye, Ahsoka. I have sense that we will see each other again, very soon."

"Good Bye, Master Plo." Ahsoka said, watching the airlock shut and the other spaceship disengage.

Ahsoka stood there, staring down at the tiny pouch in her hand. She didn't dare let herself speculate what was inside. She reached down and undid the top of the pouch, before upending it and shaking its contents out onto her open palm.

Two tiny green crystals tumbled out.

Ahsoka felt a flurry of emotions pass through her as she stared down at the two innocuous looking crystals and took a deep breath, before closing her hand around them and smiling sadly.

The crystals had once been the heart of her Lightsaber and her smaller Lightsaber shoto. She could still vividly remember when she, and the other younglings of her age had travelled to Ilum and found their own Lightsaber crystals.

The memory held a special place in her heart.

It was with a heart as heavy as the crystals were light, that Ahsoka slipped the crystals back within their pouch and made her way back toward the cockpit of the ship.

As she walked through into the midsection of the ship, she had another thought. "Harry," Ahsoka called out as she climbed the stairs leading up to the cockpit. "Your ship is called the Golden Snitch?" she asked in as she entered.

A messy head of black hair poked out from behind the pilot's seat. "And?" Harry prompted with a raised eyebrow. "Golden Snitch is a great name for a spaceship."

"It's a name of a spaceship, I agree." Ahsoka said as she dropped down into the co-pilots seat and let out a long sigh. "Whether it's a great name is debatable though."

Harry gave Ahsoka an annoyed look that lasted for a whole second. "I don't know what you said to him, but we've been cleared to continue," he said.

Ahsoka gave Harry a half-hearted smile. "I just told him the truth, that what was on the datacard was important." A bitter look crossed her face. "He actually trusted me this time."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Ahsoka shook her head. "No," she said firmly. "It's in the past and it's going to stay there.

"Alright," Harry said and glanced down at her hand. "What's in the pouch?"

Ahsoka turned her gaze down to the cloth pouch she held tightly in her hand. "Nothing important," she said in between a yawn. "Just a memory."

"Get some shut eye," Harry suggested, "We've an hour before we reach the surface."

"That's… not such a bad idea," Ahsoka admitted. "I've been awake way too long." She reached up and briefly rubbed her eyes, before shifting in her seat to get into a more comfortable position. "You'll wake me up when we reach the surface?"

Harry nodded with a smile, before, himself, leaning back into his chair. "Sure thing."

Ahsoka let out another faint yawn, before closing her eyes, the tiny pouch clutched in her hand. As she drifted off to sleep, she couldn't help but wonder why she felt comfortable enough to fall asleep beside someone she'd only met hours before.

Sleep came quickly, though it didn't come quietly. Ahsoka found herself tossing and turning in her seat as feverish, vivid dreams filled her mind.

She saw twin suns fall and set the horizon on fire.

She saw a dark, silent cavern, whose ceiling sparkled like the night sky itself.

She saw storm clouds and an endless expanse of sand rising and crashing as if it were the sea itself.

She saw monsters with teeth as big as she was tall.

She saw Death.

Ahsoka woke with a start, gasping for breath as she jerked up in her seat, hand clutching at her chest as it felt as though her heart was going to tear itself out of her chest. A frantic glance around told her that she was still sitting in the cockpit of the Golden Snitch—though the seat beside her was empty.

Ahsoka rapidly blinked as she realized that for the first time, in a long time, she could see daylight. Through the cockpit window, Ahsoka saw the bright gleaming skyline of Coruscant, countless aircars and starships cruising through the sky in orderly fashion. Spires of white and silver rising up in the distance.

Ahsoka spent more than a few seconds admiring the view, a sense of relief both in seeing the familiar sight again, and the reassurance that she'd been dreaming.

Ahsoka stood up with a stretch and made her out of the cockpit. "Harry," she called out as she stepped down into the mid-section of the ship, only to find it, and the cargo hold empty.

She turned around toward the two doors either side of the stairs. She stared at them for a long moment, curious to what laid beyond them, and whether Harry was back there.

She stepped around the stairs to the right door and waved her hand over the access panel. Nothing happened. The door didn't open, nor did respond by denying her access, it just stayed closed.

"Must be broken," Ahsoka mused to herself as she stepped to the other side and waved her hand. She got the same response. Ahsoka frowned and briefly considered attempting to force them open, but felt that in addition to being impolite, it could damage the ship.

Ahsoka made her way into the cargo bay, absently looking around at the mostly empty space and found no sign of Harry. She reached over to the side and punched the button for the ramp and watched as it lowered and slid out down onto the platform below, where the ship was parked.

Ahsoka's eyes fluttered closed as a faint breeze flowed in through the ramp opening and fresh air passed over her. It was a small thing, but it felt amazing after so long in the Underworld, almost as amazing as the feeling of sunlight against her skin.

Ahsoka lost track of how long she stood there, basking in the bare elements, but eventually she opened her eyes again.

A cursory look around told her that she was in some sort of loading bay. There were vast lines of stacked containers, each labelled meticulously. She walked over to the nearest one and peered down at the label which appeared to be some sort of catalogue code.

"You there, what are you doing?"

Ahsoka looked up from the container she was inspecting and found a security guard walking toward her, a severe frown etched on their features and a stun baton in their hand.

Ahsoka quickly stepped back from the container and held up her hands, showing that they were empty. "Sorry," she said quickly. "I'm looking for my friend, Harry," she said hurriedly.

The security guard stopped and the stun baton lowered. "Last name?"

Ahsoka blinked, and her eyes widened as she realized she had forgotten. "It's… ah, Plotter? No, Potter, definitely Potter," she said firmly. She pointed toward the Golden Snitch. "I was asleep in there, and when I woke up he was gone."

Now that she was no longer in danger of imminent bodily harm, Ahsoka took a moment to actually look at the guard. He was middle aged and under his tight fitted cap there was a trace of auburn hair.

"Come with me," the guard instructed. He gestured for Ahsoka to follow him and began to walk.

Ahsoka was a bit confused, but she didn't question it and followed the guard to an office at the other end of the loading bay, inside of which she could hear two people talking.

The guard gestured for Ahsoka to enter and she did.

Inside she found a fairly unremarkable office, filled with boxes and walls covered with displays showing timetables and reference catalogues.

Over in the far corner she saw two figures standing by a desk. One she recognized as Harry. The other was a wizened old man with a head of short white hair. He wore modest garb, though his posture was that of someone of importance. In front of both of them on the desk laid something that looked very, very old.

Harry's face broke out into a smile as he saw her. "Ahsoka," he greeted and gestured to the man standing next to him. "Meet Asran Headows, he's the Master Curator here."

"Where is here exactly?" Ahsoka asked, glancing around as she approached the two.

The old man—identified as Asran—smiled. "The Galactic Museum," he said and gestured. "The finest museum in all the galaxy." He sounded particularly proud of that. "Young Harry here was just telling me of his most recent misadventure, and the part you played in it—Ahsoka Tano, wasn't it?"

Ahsoka nodded slowly, glancing back at Harry.

"Asran is my benefactor, so to speak," Harry informed her. "He pays me to run all around the galaxy and bring him back shiny things."

The white haired man beside Harry made a sound of disapproval. "I'd be far more at ease with hiring you, if you had a modicum of respect for the antiquities you procure. For the life of me I have no clue as to how you're as successful you are."

"Oh you know, magic," Harry said, winking at Ahsoka.

Asran gave Harry an annoyed look. "Yes, well. I have no concerns for your methods as long as they produce results."

"Have I ever let you down?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No, no you have not," Asran admitted, "As we discussed previously, if you're successful in locating suitable relics for our upcoming exhibition, you will be rewarded most handsomely."

"I make no promises," Harry said with a shake of the head. "You're asking for a lot, even for me."

"I have faith in you, Harry, but now, if you'll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to."

"Of course," Harry said with a nod and walked over to Ahsoka and gave her a smile. "Come on, let's get going."

Ahsoka said nothing as she walked along side Harry out of the office and they made their way back to the ship on foot. It wasn't until they arrived that one of them broke the silence.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked as he stopped and turned toward Ahsoka.

"Nothing," Ahsoka responded instantly. "I was just surprised."

"Surprised?"

"Yeah, surprised." Ahsoka gestured around to the various containers. "I didn't take you for the working type. I thought you well…"

"Well?"

Ahsoka gave a huff, "You know… stole things."

"Things are rarely what they appear at first glance," Harry said with a faintly amused smile. "Besides, I told you, didn't I? I'm a very complicated person."

Ahsoka fought it as best she could, but in the end she found herself smiling as well and let out a laugh. "I suppose you did," she acknowledged.

"Come on," Harry said, gesturing for her to board the ship with him, and made his way up the ramp into the cargo hold. "Have you thought about where you wanted me to take you?"

Ahsoka stumbled slightly as she stepped up onto the ramp, caught off guard by the question. She hesitated for a moment. "No," she said. "Not really."

"You might want to decide soon," Harry said as he opened the door to the next section of the ship with a wave over the door sensor. "I'd hate to drag you half way around the galaxy before you decide you want to be on the other half."

Ahsoka followed after Harry quietly as she thought over what he had said. It wasn't until they reached the cockpit and were both sitting down that she spoke. "What if I wanted you to?" Ahsoka asked suddenly.

Harry gave her a questioning look.

"I mean what if I wanted to keep travelling with you?" Ahsoka asked quickly.

Harry's eyebrows rose. "Why would you want to?"

There were a lot of ways Ahsoka could have responded.

She could have said that she didn't really have anywhere else to go, and no matter where she went it would be the same story.

She could have admitted that the 'magic' that he used concerned her, and that she wanted to know more about it—though she was perfectly fine not learning anymore about the 'Elder Wand' as he had called it.

She could have said that she was lonely, and she felt a connection to him that she couldn't put into words. A connection that had no basis, physical or otherwise—one that she wanted to explore the depths of, and to understand why she was so comfortable around him.

They were all reasons, and some of them were even good. But beyond them, there was a question that lingered, a question that she was afraid to ask.

Despite her fears of the question, she posed it none the less. "Do you not want me to?"

Harry regarded her for a long moment, his eyes staring into hers. She felt as though she was an open book, and as if her eyes betrayed her, though she felt his gaze all the same.

Eventually, Harry relented. "Okay," he said.

"Okay?" Ahsoka asked hesitantly.

Harry nodded. "Okay."

Ahsoka gave him a dubious look. "Okay?"

"Okay," Harry insisted and looked at her expectantly.

"I'm not saying it again."

Harry clucked his tongue. "Okay."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes, a smile tugging at her lips.

Harry chuckled and began to run through the pre-flight checklist. "You can stay as long as you want, Ahsoka," he told her.

Ahsoka felt something well up inside her. "Thank you," she said. "That means a lot to me."

Harry just smiled as he took control of the ship and brought it up into the air. A few taps on the display later a request was sent through to the planetary space control, informing them that they were departing.

Ahsoka began to get nervous as she watched Harry log their intent. She'd had to deal with multiple rejections from off planet transports and no one had been willing to tell her why.

A response came immediately and Ahsoka felt the bottom of her stomach drop out.

Harry's eyebrows rose up as he turned to Ahsoka. "Are you aware that you've been restricted from off planet travel?"

"Does it say why?" Ahsoka demanded to know, leaning over to read the directive that had been sent through and found herself reading a mind bogglingly complex legally worded message that boiled down to 'bad things will happen to you if you take Ahsoka Tano off world'.

"I don't understand a word of this," Ahsoka said, her voice tinged with anger.

Harry grimaced. "Not surprising. My legalese is strong, and It's still a bit hard to get through, but what it boils down to is that they're afraid that due to your former status as Jedi General, and the mistreatment at their hands, the senate is worried that you'll defect to the Separatists and spill military secrets. Anyone who takes you off world is automatically put under sanction."

"I-I would never! That's… that's absurd!" Ahsoka blurted out angrily.

"That's politics," Harry pointed out dryly and shook his head as he began to accelerate and brought the ship into alignment with the planetary escape trajectory.

Ahsoka looked at Harry in surprise. "What are you doing?"

"Leaving?" Harry pointed out with a raised eyebrow. "What did you expect me to do, ditch you?"

"But… the sanctions? I don't want you to suffer for me."

"Ahsoka," Harry said with a smile, "Relax. They can threaten me all they want, the sanctions have no teeth to bite me with. I mean, what are they going to do? Ban me from Republic systems?"

Ahsoka hesitated for a second. "Well, yeah," she said.

That gave Harry pause for a second, before he shook his head. "I'd like to see them try."

Seeing that Harry had neither the intention, nor inclination to bow to the senate's edict, Ahsoka began to relax again. She watched as the bright blue drained away from the outside of the ship and began to fade to the inky black of space.

The ship had barely left Coruscants atmosphere, before another transmission came through.

"Golden Snitch, you are violating—"

The hologram barely had time to form, before it blipped out as Harry ended the transmission. "That's enough of that," he said dismissively.

Ahsoka couldn't help but let out a short laugh.

Harry flashed her a smile. "We've more important things to concern ourselves with than politicians."

"Like what?"

"Like getting to Tatooine."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four  
**

 _16:02:20 GrS  
_

 _HYPERSPACE, Outer Rim  
_

The Golden Snitch was travelling through hyperspace along the Correlian Run toward Tatooine. It had been for the past day, the majority of which Ahsoka had spent deep in meditation, clearing her mind and firming her control over the emotions she felt within.

Eventually however, she began to get bored and turned her attention outward once more.

As Ahsoka opened her eyes she was greeted with the swirling blue of Hyperspace that stretched on beyond infinity outside of the ship. A glance beside her told her that Harry was relaxing in his chair, his eyes staring straight forward into the tumultuous void.

"What was the planet you grew up on like?" Ahsoka asked suddenly as the question occurred to her, breaking the long silence.

Harry looked over to Ahsoka in surprise. "Where did that question come from?"

Ahsoka shrugged a shoulder. "There's only so long you can stare into hyperspace before you start going crazy," she said before giving Harry a considering look. "Though that might explain some things."

Harry gave a chuckle. "Well played," he said, before leaning back in his chair, a contemplative look overtaking his features. "My planet, huh?"

Ahsoka nodded. "You said it was called Earth, right?"

"That's right," Harry murmured, his voice becoming inflective. "If I had to compare, Earth was quite like Correlia—or Alderan as well, I suppose. The planet's landscape varied from deserts, to rainforests, to mountain ranges to tundras. There was a little bit of everything on it."

Ahsoka digested that information. "Could everyone use magic, like you can?"

Harry shook his head. "No," he said, "Very few people are born with the ability to do magic—it seems to be mostly hereditary and those that do have to be trained in its use."

"Like Jedi?"

"I suppose so," Harry mused. "Though training began once a magical child reached eleven years old and they were sent to school to learn from teachers who specialized in the various types of magic."

"Sent… to school?" Ahsoka raised an eyebrow.

Harry grinned. "The school I went to was called Hogwarts. It was one of the oldest and most renowned on the whole planet."

"I'm surprised the Jedi haven't heard more about… magic, since it seems so, well, formal."

"There are a few reasons for that, I'd imagine," Harry admitted. "The first being, that Earth itself is quite primitive technologically compared to the rest of the galaxy. The last time I checked, I don't think we'd managed to travel out of our own solar system."

Ahsoka gave Harry a strange look. "If that's the case then how are you here with me now?"

"I honestly don't know," Harry said with a shrug of the shoulder. "I woke up one day on a spaceship, and kind went from there. As far as I can tell, no one's really had any contact with Earth before. There are no signs that it has ever been visited." He frowned. "If it was the case for magic, I'd get that. Even back on Earth the Wizarding World was secretive, chances were that if you weren't magic, then you didn't even know it existed. I know I didn't until I got my invitation to go to Hogwarts."

"Well, think of it this way," Ahsoka said. "According to Galactic History, before the invention of the hyper drive, humanity sent out sleeper ships from Coruscant into the far reaches of the galaxy to seed the stars with civilization. Clearly one of the sleeper ships made it to wherever earth, so it goes without saying that it's possible for other ships to have found it as well, maybe they just kept it secret?"

"That's a possibility," Harry said after a few seconds, before shaking his head and smiling. "Enough about Earth, what about you? What was it like growing up as a Jedi?"

Ahsoka wasn't prepared to have the spotlight suddenly pointed back at her, and for a few seconds didn't respond as she considered the question. "It… just was, I suppose," she said unsurely. "I don't really have anything to compare it to, I felt that at times it could be difficult, but I never struggled alone, and there was always someone there to help me if I faltered on my way."

Ahsoka thought back and began to reminisce. "I have to admit, when I began, I never imagined that part of learning to be a Jedi would involve learning about politics, galactic law, sciences, language or… well, I suppose I never really gave thought for what it took to be a Jedi."

Ahsoka chuckled and shook her head. "I'll never forget how proud I was when Master Yoda approached me and asked me if I wanted to become a Padawan."

"Why?"

"Because, not only was I selected earlier than normal, but he chose me to become Ma…" Ahsoka's good mood dwindled slightly. "He chose me to become Anakin Skywalker's padawan. He's a legend in the temple, and a hero to the republic. He's one of the most powerful Jedi in the whole galaxy."

"Actually… one of our first missions brought us to Tatooine," Ahsoka said with a faint smile. "The Separatists had kidnapped Jabba the Hutt's son, Rotta, and Anakin and I were tasked with rescuing him. We managed it, somehow, and gained the support of the Hutt clans for the Republic in the war effort."

Ahsoka bit her bottom lip and realized that the wound was still far too raw, and talking about what she had done in the name of the Jedi Order was not making things better.

"Sorry, can we talk about something else?" She shook her head and forced a smile. "Enough talking about our past. Instead, let's talk about _the_ past. How do you do what you normally do?"

Harry's eyebrows rose to meet his hairline, his mind briefly struggling with her declaration. "How do I do what I do?" He smiled after a few seconds. "By that you mean find artifact's, right?"

Ahsoka nodded.

"Well, that's a very big question," Harry admitted. "Usually I start with planetary archives, they're usually the most complete source of factual information. But, in the case of Tatooine, the earliest mentions are from various mining companies dating back as far as four thousand years ago who settled the planet in order to mine it for its resources, and any information they may have had is protected under some legal mumbo jumbo about corporate interests."

Harry shook his head again. "From what I've been able to ascertain, at some point Tatooine was abandoned, and it was only about a thousand years ago that people started settling it again. Quite frankly, the official record—what you and I can access of it, anyway—doesn't go back far enough to help us, so we have to turn to alternative sources."

Rather than prompting Harry as he no doubt expected, Ahsoka took a moment to consider what other options there were for a would be treasure hunter to find treasure. She'd learn from Master Plo that a cantina was always a good source of information for the galaxy's scum, they could never resist a good brag about their accomplishments. That didn't quite factor in though, smugglers and mercenaries weren't the type of people to be interested in discovering old things. But then, those weren't the only people who visited cantinas. Local workers did as well, and wouldn't the people who actually lived on the planet know more about it?

"Local lore and legends," Ahsoka said to Harry, "from people whose families have lived on Tatooine for generations."

Harry beamed at Ahsoka and nodded. "Exactly! No one knows places better than the people who live there, and have lived there for their whole lives. But on Tatooine, we can go one step further than that."

Ahsoka had to admit, she had no idea where Harry was going with it, thankfully though Harry must have noticed, because he continued without her having to prompt him.

"One thing remains constant throughout the thousands of years since Tatooine was discovered, and they've been a pain in the ass to everyone who's tried to tame Tatooine."

Ahsoka's eyes widened as it suddenly became clear. "The Sand People?" She blurted out incredulously. "You have to be kidding."

"I'm not kidding," Harry said, "Think about it. One thing has remained constant since the beginning of colonization attempts of Tattooine; the Sand People—I'm not talking about them just being there, all records indicate in over four thousand years they haven't evolved socially or physically. Do you know what that tells me?"

Ahsoka snorted and folded her arms across her chest. "That they're little more than wild beasts walking on two legs?" She muttered. "I've heard stories about them, how barbaric they are, how they're constantly attacking anyone and everyone who gets close to them—not to mention that they hunt people down and torture them."

"I'm not going to downplay the atrocities that they've committed, or make any attempt to apologise on their behalf," Harry said, lifting his hands up in surrender. "But historically, as far as Tatooine goes, they've been there the longest. They may know something, or they may just, as you say, be savage beasts, but until we ask them we won't know for certain."

"Let's agree to disagree," Ahsoka suggested.

"Alright," Harry said with a nod, before frowning. "Say, are you hungry? I'm a bit hungry."

"I guess," Ahsoka said reluctantly after a moment. "I take it you have some ration packs or energy bars on board?"

"Something like that," Harry said as he stood up and flashed Ahsoka a smile and gestured for her to follow him as he made his way out of the cockpit.

Ahsoka gave a sigh and shook her head as she stood up and followed after him, leaving the cockpit.

She found him waiting at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at her expectantly. "I figured if you're going to be staying with me for a while, you'll need your own room," he said, gesturing to the left side of the stairs.

Ahsoka glanced down and found herself looking at one of the doors she had been unable to open. "I tried to open them before I found you at the Museum," she admitted. "I think the control panels are broken, they wouldn't open, and they didn't seem locked."

"Well, that's good to know," Harry said happily. "I locked them using magic to make sure no one could get in without me being there," he informed her and lifted a hand up, waving it toward the left door.

Ahsoka felt something pass through the air ever so briefly, before the lights on the control panel lit up, indicating the door was once again operational. She didn't wait for Harry, her curiosity buzzing. She walked to the door and thumbed the open button.

The door hissed and split down the middle as the two halves drew back.

Ahsoka's eyebrows rose up as she found herself staring into a surprisingly long and large room that was largely empty except for a long row of seats on the right wall.

One of which was occupied by something.

Sitting on the first seat, stuck to the chair by a brace was what appeared to be a skeletal droid with much of its wiring and servos uncovered. Its head was angular and sloping with a distinctive feminine contour to it.

Ahsoka noted that there appeared to be some sort of device embedded in the centre of its chest between two sloping mechanical plates. Ahsoka glanced over her shoulder at Harry, levelling him with a questioning look.

Harry shrugged a shoulder. "I saw it and I thought it looked interesting so I stole it," he explained and shook his head. "I can't seem to get it to work though. Mechanical stuff isn't my specialty."

Ahsoka shook her head and laughed, unable to help herself. "Don't you mean permanently borrowed?"

Harry shook his head. "No, this one I definitely stole," he said, "But if you could get it working I'd be happy. Droids are a curiosity for me, they're just fascinating, you know?"

Ahsoka nodded slowly as she looked around 'her' new room. It wasn't much, but it was more than she'd had in recent memory; a place to call her own.

"So, we were talking food?" Ahsoka asked as she turned back around to face Harry.

Harry blinked and broke out into a smile. "Oh, right!" He gestured for her to follow him again and lead her over to the right door. Another quick wave of his hand and the door activated and opened.

Harry went through and Ahsoka followed right after him.

"So where is… the…" Ahsoka trailed off into silence as she stared ahead, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. "…Why is your room bigger than mine?"

Ahsoka found herself standing in an impossibly spacious room that looked more at place in a rustic get away retreat than it did on a spaceship. The floors were amber hardwood and the walls were a beige interspersed with support beams that had no reason to be there.

To the side there was a large stone fireplace that climbed to the top of the ceiling, inside of which a fire was merrily crackling away, warming the room with a golden glow.

Ahsoka watched as Harry walked passed a pair of couches that sat in front of the fireplace to the back of the room, and through a doorway, vanishing into another room that defied all rationale by existing.

It was only then, that Ahsoka noticed that there were several more doors around the room, each leading off in different directions.

At first, Ahsoka wasn't sure if she was hallucinating or not—if Harry had slipped her spice while she hadn't been paying attention—but she quickly put the concern aside and accepted what she saw as real. She didn't dare pose the question 'how', she knew what answer she would get. Instead she considered the phenomenon around her and trying to come up with a logical explanation, even if she couldn't comprehend how it was possible. The internal dimensions of the room exceeded the external dimension—by a large margin if Harry vanishing into other rooms was any indication. That was as far as Ahsoka got before she decided that it wasn't worth the headache.

Ahsoka began to wander around the room, peering at the various bits of furniture strewn around. She ran her fingers over the smooth grain of a bookshelf as she passed it, only to stop at a vase filled with orange flowers, a type she had never seen before. She leaned in and sniffed and was rewarded with a very sweet and heavily floral scent.

"They're called lilium bulbiferum, or more commonly, the tiger lily."

Ahsoka glanced over her shoulder and found Harry standing there, holding a silver tray in his hands, on which laid a plate of white meat and various colours of vegetable, a slice of some sort of sweetly smelling and golden brown as well as a glass of orange liquid.

"They're lovely," Ahsoka said as she eyed the tray and licked her lips. "What's this?" She asked.

"Roast chicken with vegetables, a slice of treacle tart and a glass of pumpkin juice," Harry said happily and turned around, walking over to the fireplace and setting it down in on a table in front of one of the couches.

"I have no idea what any of those things are," Ahsoka admitted as she sat down opposite it. "But it smells delicious." Without any preamble, Ahsoka picked up the utensils and dug in.

"So," Harry began to say after a few seconds. "What do you think of my humble abode?" He asked, grinning and gesturing around.

Ahsoka chewed and swallowed the mouthful of chicken she had. "It's bigger on the inside," she remarked dryly, before spearing one of the orange coloured vegetables and bringing it up to sniff at. She gingerly bit down on the end and chewed experimentally, before her nose crinkled and she set it back down and went back to the meat.

"Aren't you going to ask me how I did it?"

Ahsoka shook her head. "You'll just say magic," she pointed out, before reaching over and picking up the 'pumpkin juice' and taking a sip, only to find that it wasn't… absolutely terrible. She begrudgingly swallowed.

Harry gave her an annoyed look and leaned back in his chair. "Well, yeah, but still, you could at least humour me."

Ahsoka gave him an amused look as she speared another piece of chicken and didn't rise to the bait, instead she gestured toward the various doors around the room. "What else do you have in here?" she asked.

Harry glanced over his shoulder and pointed toward the very back of the room. "That's the door to my room over there, going clockwise we have the bathroom—or refresher, as you call them, kitchen, workshop, storage and the green house."

Ahsoka grew more impressed with each room that was listed and the actual scope of how 'big' the spaceship room had become began to really dawn on her. "That's… insane," she said in disbelief, shaking her head. "How is that even possible?"

Harry beamed. "Magic, of course," he said happily. "Though if you're asking for a more technical explanation, I believe the explanation the person who taught me how to do it involved terms like 'subspace pocket' and 'dimensional refraction and disassociation'. All very technical, thankfully the process is a bit easier than remembering the whole lecture, if only slightly."

Ahsoka zoned out halfway through listening to Harry talk, and instead, her mind turned back to something he had mentioned. "Wait, you said that you have a refresher onboard?" she asked, looking up at Harry intently. "Does it have a sonic shower?"

Harry's nose crinkled. "No, those things are dreadful. I prefer a good old fashion hot water shower myself. You know, I looked into how feasible it was to get an actual water shower working on the starship, but in the end I just enchanted a showerhead to spew out hot water, much less hassle."

"I haven't had a proper shower since before the trial," Ahsoka said wistfully, before she shook her head and smiled at Harry eagerly. "Can I?"

"I don't see why not," Harry said. "There are extra towels in the linen closet if you need them."

Ahsoka was up before Harry finished speaking and made a bee line straight for the refresher.

Ahsoka had idea what she had expected. Sure, she had been prepared for its size to be impossibly large, and yet she still found herself briefly without words.

Harry had called it just a refresher, that was like calling Coruscant just a planet. It was technically correct, but it didn't do it justice by a long shot.

The refresher was as large as the main room, its floor and walls were made of some sort of off-white stone with swirls of faint greyish blue, in the centre there was a large circular tub sunk into the floor filled to the brim. Steam wafted off the surface of the water enticingly. It was large enough to fit half a dozen people in with room to spare and resembled a small pool, more so than a bath.

To the left of it there was a mirror that lined the wall, below which sat a basin set into a cabinet with as a dozen or so draws. The right side had baskets for clothes as well as hangers covered with towels, bathrobes and other things.

At the other end of the refresher was what she was looking for. A large brass showerhead hung in midair, suspended through a means she couldn't see. Beneath it was a circular slate of a porous grey stone.

Ahsoka approached the 'shower' with curiosity as she eyed it. There were no visible means to turn it on. Normally there would be a dial, or a set of twitches—some sort of method for activating and deactivating it, but then, hadn't Harry said it? He'd used magic to make it.

"…Shower on?" Ahsoka tried to no avail.

She glanced down at the dark stone beneath the shower head and eased her foot forward onto it. The moment the bottom of her shoe touched it the shower head activated. She jerked her foot back as a spray of water droplets splashed down, only to find that they vanished before they hit the ground.

Her eyebrows rose up, but rather than wondering how it was possible, Ahsoka just accepted that it was and without further preamble, she stripped and stepped onto the plate.

She flinched as the first spray hit her, before relaxing and letting out a sound of appreciation as the hot water cascaded down.

An indeterminate amount of time later and after countless litres of hot water, Ahsoka finally stepped out of the refresher once more dressed in her usual attire.

"Thanks, I really needed that," Ahsoka said with a contented sigh, only to find that Harry wasn't there.

Just as she was about to start looking through the rooms, Ahsoka felt a sudden shift as the ship dropped out of hyperspace. It was far too early for them to have arrived. They had another few days before they were even close. "That explains where he went," Ahsoka said to herself as she turned around and headed out of the expanded room and back into the ship actual.

Ahsoka scaled the stairs quickly and found Harry sitting in his seat. "What happened?" she asked.

Harry flashed Ahsoka a smile. "Good timing, we're a few minutes out from atmosphere."

Ahsoka blinked slowly as she processed what he had said and gave him an odd look. "Are you sure you didn't just input the wrong data into the navcomputer? It's far too… early…" Ahsoka trailed off as a familiar desert planet floated into view of the cockpit.

Harry was looking at her expectantly. She knew what he wanted her to ask, she wasn't going to give him the pleasure. Without a word she sat down and brought up the navcomputer, double checking the coordinates and making sure that Harry hadn't entered in the wrong planet on accident. Even as she looked, she knew what she was going to find, and sure enough they read true.

Ahsoka sat back in her seat and considered what she knew about Hyperdrives and the limitations they had.

Hyperdrives were classed based on an asymptotic scale from zero and upward. The greater the superluminal speed of a hyperdrive, the lower it sat on the scale. Class Zero was considered infinite speed, and thus entirely theoretical.

Most Republic starships had a Class Three or Class Two hyperdrive. The fastest ships had Class One's, and they were far and few in between. There were a few whispered examples of aftermarket hyperdrive modifications that pushed the boundaries and went into Decimal range, but the fastest she'd ever heard boasted about was Point Five.

A Class One hyperdrive would have gotten them from Coruscant to Tatooine in a little under a week in most cases. To have arrived in just over a day. The sheer concept of it boggled her mind.

Ahsoka took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "How did you use magic to make your ship this fast?"

Harry gave her a look of approval. "When I got the ship I thought it was a bit slow, so I took it to a shipwright on Mandalore and had him walk me through what made a hyperdrive function, and what the differences were between the good models and the best ones. He explained what the limitations were, and I used magic to exceed them."

Ahsoka considered what Harry said for a long moment, before finally nodding her head. "Alright."

"Alright?" Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Alright," Ahsoka said, "I can accept that."

"Really, just like that?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Just like that," Ahsoka said with a smirk and gestured toward the planet. "Where are we headed?"

"It's a toss-up between Bestine and Anchorhead. Bestine is the capital city, but Anchorhead has a bit more history to it—it's where the mining companies operated back when Tatooine was discovered the first time." Harry considered. "Plus it has more annual reports of trouble with the locals than Bestine."

"Sounds like Anchorhead is the winner," Ahsoka remarked dryly with a shake of her head. "I'd feel a lot more comfortable going down if I had a weapon of some sort," Ahsoka confided in Harry.

"Don't worry," Harry said easily, entering Anchorhead as the destination and beginning the descent. "If everything goes well then we won't need weapons."

"The last time I went somewhere with you I got tied up by a cultist C'thon and had to fight a Rancor with my bare hands, and you had to use that… thing." Ahsoka pointed out calmly. "Forgive me if I'm not exactly brimming with enthusiasm at the prospect."

"I can't argue with that," Harry said, a smile tugging at his lips. "Do you want a blaster, or perhaps I can transfigure you a sword?" He suggested.

Ahsoka considered the offer. She didn't particularly like blasters, sure she could use them, but they were far from a favoured weapon and she wasn't anywhere near as proficient as the clone troopers she had worked with through the war with the Seperatists—something they had teased her about relentlessly.

At first a sword sounded like a good idea to Ahsoka. It had the same shape and function as a Lightsaber. Except, as close as they were in form to each other, they differed drastically in both weight and the skill to use them. Ahsoka dreaded to think what could happen if she defaulted to her Lightsaber forms while using an actual sword.

Her hand absently reached down, brushing over the pocket where she had secreted away her old Lightsaber crystals. "No, it's fine," Ahsoka finally decided, "The force is my weapon, I need no other."

Ahsoka found Harry's eyes resting on her, pensive in their gaze. It was in moments like this that she had to remind herself that he was her age. She found herself matching his gaze.

Ahsoka held his gaze unwaveringly and calmly spoke. "If you don't pay attention to where you're flying, we're going to crash."

Harry broke the staring contest with a blink and glanced back out of the cockpit, casually pulling down on the throttle and easing up on the descent and levelling out.

Ahsoka smiled, pleased with herself. She turned her head back to the cockpit window and looked out at the vast expanse of desert that stretched out beyond the planets horizon, broken up only by rocky crags and deep valleys that had been gouged out of the planet's surface over countless millennia. Far on the horizon she could see a gargantuan sandstorm swirling through one of the many dune seas that covered the planet's surface.

Ahsoka sat back and was content to watch as Harry brought them down, peering down at the rapidly growing settlement. After a few minutes it had grown to the point where she could make out the individuals walking in the streets, and soon after, Harry set down the ship along the outskirts of Anchorhead.

Before she knew it, Ahsoka was standing at the top of the ramp beside him, watching as it lowered down.

She regretted every decision she'd made that had led her to that point as soon as the first gust of Tatooine air hit her square in the face, hot and searing, unpleasant and stinging with sand. "…I forgot how much I hated this planet," Ahsoka said, grimacing more and more as the ramp lowered further and further, letting more of the obscenely hot air in.

Beside her, Harry was sporting a similar look, his features crinkled in distaste at the abominable heat. "Well, as certain that I am that I'd get used to it eventually, I'm not quite keen on the idea either." Ahsoka watched as Harry lifted a hand up and reached over, lightly tapping her on the temple.

Ahsoka inhaled slightly as the scorching wind had a sudden drop in temperature until it was more comparable to an ocean side breeze.

"It's a variation on a flame freezing charm," Harry explained to her happily. "My friends older brother taught it to me during a misadventure involving sand, sun and an irritable soul sucking zombie named Nefertiti."

Ahsoka smiled, shaking her head. "I'm not even going to ask, I'm just going to enjoy it," she said happily. "The worst part of desert planets is the wind, now it's not so bad at all. I could get used to it—" She flinched and frowned. "—except for the occasional sting from the sand."

Harry gave a laugh at that. "Can't do much about it right now," he said and began to step down the ramp. "Let's find a cantina and see if we can find someone who knows where the Sand People are hiding out."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes and followed after him.

As they walked along, Ahsoka found herself surprised. She'd never been to Anchorhead before, but from how Harry had spoken about it she had assumed it would be bustling with activity, and while there were clearly people around, it wasn't anywhere near the level she had imagined.

She noticed a distinct lack of shady types as they walked. Most of the people seemed like common folk going about their day, sans the occasional group of teenagers loitering in the shadows of a building.

By the time they'd arrived at a cantina, the most activity Ahsoka had seen had involved a bunch of people loading barrels of condensed water onto a transport at the insistence of a grumpy looking rodian.

Ahsoka eyed the cantina in front of them with distaste. After spending a month working in one, she'd have been happy if she never stepped a foot inside another. "I'll wait out here for you," Ahsoka told Harry.

Harry turned back to Ahsoka, surprised, but didn't question her. Instead, he smiled. "In that case, do you want to go and rent a speeder for us?"

"I left my money back on the ship," Ahsoka admitted. "I can head back and grab some if you need me to."

Harry shook his head. "No worries, I can handle it. He slipped a hand into the pocket of his dark tunic. "Let's see, we're in the outer rim, and I think the Hutts are in charge here, so…"

Ahsoka watched as Harry pulled a handful of gold coins out of his pocket, her eyebrows raising up high in response to the sight.

"Here," Harry said and dropped them into her hand. "These are Peggats, each one is worth about 40 credits. It should be enough to rent a landspeeder for the day."

Ahsoka stared down at the pile of coins in her hand and did a quick bout of mental math. "I don't think any landspeeder we rent is going to cost 800 credits," she said with a shake of the head, before smiling. "Mind if I use the extra to buy some stuff?"

"Knock yourself out," Harry said easily and a moment later he vanished into the cantina, leaving Ahsoka to her own devices.

Ahsoka glanced down to the pile of gold coins in her hands and shifted them around with her fingers, before smiling and pocketing them. She turned away from the cantina and began to backtrack along the path they'd taken. She was certain she had seen a half dozen or so speeders parked outside a store on the way.

On the way back, Ahsoka found herself taking in the sights of the settlement, or rather, the lack of them. She saw large reptilian dewbacks and banthas tied up beside each other along with various clunker starships that looked like they'd been sandblasted, the paint having been stripped from them long ago.

Eventually she found the place and headed inside, past the rows of various hovering vehicles. Inside the sandstone building there was a counter, behind which stood a large Trandoshan whose reptilian head was turned toward a holoscreen watching what looked to be a podrace.

Ahsoka waited for him to look to her, and after several seconds passed she gave a polite "Ahem."

The Trandoshan's head tilted ever so slightly and one of its large orange eyes looked toward her. "What do you want?" It asked her bluntly.

"I want to hire a speeder for the day, how much?"

That got the shopkeeps attention, and Ahsoka found the large reptilian man turning toward her, its long shape-toothed mouth curving slightly. Its tongue flickered out of its mouth briefly. "Five peggat."

Ahsoka's eyes narrowed. "And how much for one that doesn't strand me in the middle of the desert?"

The Trandoshan's smile widened further, showing off a mouth of very sharp teeth. "Ten."

Ahsoka did the mental math and held back a grimace. Four hundred credits was no laughing matter, but then, getting stuck in the desert wasn't either."

"Deal," Ahsoka said, drawing out ten of the coins that Harry had given her and dropped them on the counter in a stack.

They were swept up by a clawed hand and inspected for more than a few seconds. Eventually however, the shopkeep seemed satisfied. He reached behind himself to a board and carefully drew off a marked key, setting it in front of Ahsoka.

"This key is for the X-31. If you return it in a days' time and you will get half your money back," He told her in his hissing voice. "If you do not, I will come for you."

Ahsoka gave a sharp nod and picked the key up. She turned around and made her way out to the front and looked for her new landspeeder. It didn't take her long to find it.

It was the one that still had some paint left on the hull.

Without any preamble, Ahsoka hopped into the pilot seat and shoved the key into the activator. Instead of heading straight back, however, Ahsoka made a few stops along the way, using the extra funds she had left over to purchase a few nicknacks and a small pile of electronic scrap for later use.

By the time she pulled back around to the cantina, Harry was waiting for her out the front, talking to a gruff old man who looked like he had swallowed a lemon. Ahsoka pulled up beside them and waved.

Ahsoka didn't catch Harry's parting words, but saw the older man give him a grim nod and head back into the cantina.

Harry walked over to the landspeeder and hopped into the passenger seat beside Ahsoka. "There was an attack yesterday to the west, just before a canyon that heads north toward Mos Eisley. I'd say it's our best bet for finding one of them."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes and throttled up, driving the speeder along the street and taking the first turn to the left she saw. "We have the speeder for the next day," she said to Harry, "If we don't bring it back by then, the shopkeep said he's going to track us down personally."

Harry blinked slowly before shaking his head. "At least he was being upfront about it," he said, breaking out into a grin. "Did you tell him where we were taking it?"

Ahsoka broke out into a laugh. "Of course not, there isn't a single person in the galaxy who would be willing to rent a speeder out to someone who was going looking for trouble."

"We're not looking for trouble," Harry said insistently. "We're looking for answers to questions that no one else can answer."

Ahsoka shook her head, smiling all the while as she brought the speeder around to Anchorhead's west exit and pushed down on the throttle, accelerating faster and faster as they cleared the settlement.

Ten minutes of cruising at full speed later and Ahsoka had to hold in her laughter at the sight of Harry's impressive new hairstyle. Somehow, defying all logic, it appeared that it was possible for it to become even more unruly and windswept than usual, though he appeared oblivious to the fact, his eyes closed and head tilted to the side, basking in the wind.

Ahsoka was so caught up in the amusing sight that she almost missed the canyon in the distance. She pulled back on the throttle and the speeder began to slow. "We're almost there," she said to Harry with a smile, "How do you want to do this?"

Harry brought his head back inside the speeder. "Want to let them ambush us?"

Ahsoka's good cheer dwindled quickly. "Be serious."

"I am being serious," Harry insisted and waved a hand toward the canyon in the distance. "Hear me out. We don't know where they are, or even if they're there."

"If you're worried about finding them, then relax. Once we're close enough I'll be able to feel them within the force," Ahsoka said, "We can ambush them, and interrogate them. There's no point in putting ourselves in danger if we don't have to."

Harry gave her an impressed look. "That's a better plan than mine," he said without a hint of shame.

"Speaking of plan," Ahsoka said after a moment as a realization struck her. "I can't help but notice that we didn't bring a translation droid with us. I take it that means you also miraculously speak their language as well?"

"Not yet."

Ahsoka glanced aside at Harry. "Could you be more cryptic? I take it it's a magic thing?"

Harry let out a laugh. "Oh you better believe I could be more cryptic," he said, "But yeah, it's a magic thing. We just need to grab one of them and sit them down for a nice chat."

Ahsoka nodded slowly, digesting what Harry had said. "In that case, I'll park the speeder outside the canyon and go find one for you."

Harry considered her offer. "No," he said with a shake of his head. "I'll go grab one, you stay with the speeder, it'll be quicker."

"Are you trying to imply that you'd get one of them before I could?"

Harry gave Ahsoka an odd look. "Imply? I flat out said it."

"Oh it is so on," Ahsoka grumbled as she pulled the land speeder to a stop outside the start of the canyon. She turned to face Harry. "What are the rules?"

"First one back with a sand person wins."

"Easy," Ahsoka said flippantly as she hopped out of the landspeeder and stretched. "You should have at least asked for a handicap. This is going to be too easy."

Harry stepped out of the vehicle and gave Ahsoka an annoyed look. "You really think you're going to beat me?"

"Of course," Ahsoka said instantly, turning to face him. "I can sense where they are even now. Your magic won't do you any good if you can't find them."

"I never said I couldn't find them," Harry pointed out. "I only said that we didn't know where they were." He reached up and ran his fingers through his messy hair and turned toward the canyon. "Honestly, as much fun as I think a competition would be, I think it'd be safer to go together."

"Sounds like the talk of someone who knows he'd get second place," Ahsoka said, a teasing smile on her lips, but none the less, begrudgingly agreed with the sentiment. There was no sense in being reckless and getting hurt.

"Come on," Ahsoka said, gesturing for Harry to follow her as she began to walk toward the canyon wall. "Let's get this over with."

Harry followed after her, quickly catching up and walking in stride.

It wasn't long before they reached the start of the canyon walls.

Ahsoka turned to Harry. "We'll have better luck finding them and remaining unseen if we take the high ground," she said.

Harry craned his head back and looked up. "Blimey, that's a bit of a climb, isn't it?"

"Race you!" Ahsoka called out, smiling to herself as she drew upon the force. With a force empowered leap she rocketed upward, landing on an outcropping far up the Cliffside. She didn't bother looking back down at Harry and began a series of jumps, climbing higher and higher with each one, before finally she reached the top and landed with a casual grace.

"About time you got here."

Ahsoka startled and spun around, only to find Harry standing a few feet away with an amused smile on his lips. Her jaw dropped. "H-how!?" She demanded to know. "I didn't see you even start the climb!"

"I took a short cut," Harry said, unable to hold a straight face.

Ahsoka folded her arms across her chest stubbornly. "You mean you cheated."

"You never said I couldn't use magic," Harry pointed out with a grin. "Just like I never said you couldn't use the force. Do you expect me to believe you can jump that high naturally?"

Ahsoka opened her mouth to respond, only to stop, frown, think, and then shake her head. "This isn't over," she informed Harry and walked right past him.

"Don't be a sore loser," Harry protested, turning as she walked past him.

"I'm not a sore loser. I didn't lose, you cheated," Ahsoka insisted, only to go silent and still as she felt something through the force. "…There is one close," she said, her voice quiet.

Harry nodded and mouthed 'Where?'

Ahsoka closed her eyes and reached out through the force, feeling for the closest life forms in the area. It took mere seconds to narrow the location down due to the scarcity of life. "It's over behind that ridge," Ahsoka whispered, pointing to the far edge of the canyon. "I can't sense any others near by, it must be a scout."

Harry nodded, lowering himself down and slowly walking forward.

Ahsoka held up a hand and shook her head, beginning to creep forward herself. She didn't say another word as she continued to move forward silently, and it wasn't long before she stood above the ridge. She glanced down over the edge and saw it.

Laying there, a long cobbled together rifle in its hand, was the sand person. It was wrapped head to toe in thick off-white cloth, in addition to a course tan robe and a mask consisting of goggles as well as two pipes protruding from near its mouth.

It hadn't noticed her presence, and by the time it did, it was too late. Ahsoka swung down, using the ledge as a grip and slammed her hand into the back of the sand persons head, smashing it hard against the rock beneath it. It didn't even have time to screech before it was out cold.

"Done," Ahsoka called out as she stood up and dusted her hands. She felt a bit bad at having been so brutal, but she couldn't have risked it calling for its friends and alerting them.

She looked up and saw Harry peek over the edge, an impressed look on his face. A second later he jumped down, stumbling only slightly as he landed. "You certainly don't do things half way, do you, Ahsoka?" He asked in good humour as he crouched down beside the unconscious body beside the togruta.

"I can't tell if that's a compliment or not," Ahsoka said as she watched Harry turn the body over.

"Me neither," Harry said as he stared down intently at the creatures face. He reached down and pressed a single fingertip against the sand person's forehead.

Ahsoka watched with interest, wondering what Harry was doing, and after five minutes her eyes widened as she saw Harry's finger pull back, drawing out a thin wisp silvery of something out of the creatures head.

"What is that?" Ahsoka asked, her voice quiet and apprehensive.

Harry slowly stood up, the silvery strand attached to his fingertip, listlessly floating. "This is a copy of a memory," he said, "more precisely, it's the cumulative memory of the Sand People's language, as this one has learned." He drew the silvery wisp up to his forehead and pressed his finger against his temple.

Ahsoka watched as the silvery vapour vanished inside his head and his features contorted as if he had bitten into something sour. As she watched, she couldn't help but feel slightly unsettled by the ability to draw memories out of a living beings mind.

There were few force powers that dealt with the mind, and all of them were morally ambiguous. The Jedi Mind Trick was the most prevalent, and even its use was as limited as possible due to the potential for abuse it contained. A Jedi was never allowed to use it for personal gain, only in the service of the greater good. Ahsoka supposed that the rule didn't apply to her anymore, yet she was still as apprehensive as ever about the potential for abuse it held.

As far as she was aware, there were no powers that actually allowed you to reach into a living persons mind and shuffle through their memories and pick out the ones you wanted for yourself. The very idea was frightening in, and of itself.

"That seems like a very… morally dangerous power to have," Ahsoka said carefully.

Harry closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, the grimace on his face slowly fading away. "It seems that way, because it is that way," he said slowly, "It's an ability that is ripe for abuse, and it takes a very strong fortitude of character to not abuse it. I limit myself to using it for extenuating circumstances. I'd consider using it to learn a language to tiptoe the line."

Ahsoka nodded slowly, her eyes glancing down to the unconscious creature at their feet. "Is it alright?"

"Just unconscious," Harry answered and reached down, picking up the sand person and pulling it over to the nearest rock and sitting it up straight. "The one downside of learning a new language like this," he began to say, "Is that it takes time to be processed, thankfully talking to someone who speaks it helps."

Harry flashed Ahsoka a grin and then stood up, waving his hands in the air. One passed over the unconscious form of the sand person and ropes sprang out of thin air, wrapping around its body and binding its arms to its wises and its legs together. The other did a twist and a faint buzzing sound began to whisper through the area.

"I used a spell to muffle the sound," Harry explained to Ahsoka, "So when I wake him up he won't be able to alert the others."

Ahsoka found herself watching in rapt attention, caught somewhere between wonder and wariness as she watched Harry tap the sand person on the forehead again, causing it to stir to wakefulness.

There was a few moments of confusion as it woke and then it realized what had happened, and the situation it was in. Ahsoka winced as it began to screech in its shrill voice. She couldn't understand it, but she was certain that it wasn't too happy.

Harry crouched down in front of the restrained sand person and patiently waited for it to stop shouting. His eyes remained focused on it the entire time, and it wasn't for ten whole minutes before the screeching ended.

By the end, Ahsoka found herself with a throbbing headache. She couldn't fathom how 'that' was considered a language. It all sounded like noise to her.

Harry stood up straight, a smile on his lips and opened his mouth. What came out was in no way, shape or form intelligible to her, but apparently the sand person understood him, because it looked stunned and replied a second later in a less screechy, but none the less still unpleasant bout of noise.

A few perplexing minutes later and Harry reached down, picking up the sand person's rifle. He snapped his fingers and the ropes binding the creature vanishes, along with the constant buzzing sound.

The bandage wrapped being warily rose up to its feet and Harry held out the gun, saying something in its language. A bandaged hand reached out and took the proffered weapon.

Ahsoka's eyebrows rose up as it didn't immediately turn the gun on them and open fire, and instead slung it over its back and let out a warbled sound of suspicion.

"Harry," Ahsoka said in the calmest voice she could muster, eyeing the now armed sand person, "What's going on?"

It turned toward her, and though she couldn't see its face, she just knew it was eyeing her. No doubt it was peeved from the little love tap she'd given it earlier.

It turned back to Harry and nodded, before turning around again and walking away.

"Come on," Harry said, gesturing for Ahsoka to follow as he began to walk. "It's going to take us back to its camp."

"Why are we going to its camp?" Ahsoka asked, "That seems like a bad idea."

"We're going to its camp because that's the only place we'll be able to talk to the clans Storyteller," Harry explained. "The Sand People use an oral history that has been passed down through over… well let's just say that they don't keep track of time the same way we do and the term 'time immemorial' fits best."

Ahsoka quickened her steps and began to walk beside Harry, glancing between him and the back of the sand person who suddenly seemed very cooperative and trusting. "That doesn't sound like a reliable way to record history."

Harry snorted. "You'd think so, but apparently they believe that writing it down would cheapen the value of their history." He shook his head. "No one except the Storyteller is allowed to recite it—or rather, reciting it incorrectly is considered blasphemy and punishable by death. It's kind of a big deal for them."

If Ahsoka had eyebrows they would have risen, instead her eyes widened dramatically. "That's… intense," she said, shaking her head and looking ahead at the sand person who was leading them down the canyon side. "I still don't get what you said to it to make it take us to its camp—or why we aren't going back to get the speeder."

"We're not taking the speeder, because they don't like machines and would react violently if we turned up in one."

"Oh."

"As for what I said to convince him, well, it's paraphrasing but…"

Ahsoka's eyes narrowed. "What did you say to him, Harry?"

Harry's face broke out into a massive grin. "Why, take me to your leader, of course."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Four  
**

 _16:02:20 GrS  
_

 _TATOOINE, Outer Rim_

The trek from the canyon to the Sand People's settlement wasn't a short one, nor was it a pleasant one. Despite's Harry's magic taking the searing heat away from wind and sun, the constant sting of the sand being swept along by the breeze was an irritant in and of itself. It was one that Ahsoka was beginning to deeply dislike—mainly because it gave her an intimate understanding of why the Sand People were so content to wrap themselves up in the desert.

They'd been walking so long, and walked so far, that they'd since left the endless desert and entered a rocky area that consisted of countless canyons that wound their way around an equally countless amount of large mesas.

"Thirsty?" Harry asked from beside Ahsoka.

Ahsoka looked toward him and found him holding out a canteen of water. "Where did you—oh I don't even care, give me that," Ahsoka said, snatching it out of his hand and immediately gulping down multiple mouthfuls. She let out a sigh of content and handed it back. "Thanks."

"My pleasure," Harry said as he took the canteen back and turned his gaze toward the sand person leading them. He called out to it in the strange language that they used, and as it turned toward him, he tossed the canteen.

The sand person fumbled with it, but managed to catch the canteen and looked at it for a few seconds before giving a warble. It lifted the canteen to its facial mask and somehow drank it. Ahsoka didn't pay enough attention to figure that part out, instead she looked back to the human beside her.

He was peculiar—not just in his abilities which, in and of themselves were oddities and impossibilities—but his very demeanour. She knew few people who would have been willing to walk side by side such a savage creature unarmed, more so back to a gathering of substantially more, well known for their brutality. There was a confidence about him that if she hadn't already gotten a glimpse of what he was capable of, she would have labelled as arrogance.

Harry noticed her stare, and soon she found his green eyes turned back on her, an ever present smile on his lips. "What's on your mind Ahsoka?"

Ahsoka turned her gaze forward, breaking eye contact. "I was just thinking about what you did back there," she explained. "Taking his memory of his language and absorbing it. It's similar to a dark side ability called Drain Knowledge."

Harry's eyebrows rose. "It wasn't that, I assure you."

"I know," Ahsoka responded after a moment of silence. "I was just commenting on the similarity," she said, before shaking her head and smiling. "Did you know that Jedi have their own method for getting around language barriers?" She asked.

Harry tilted his head slightly. "They do?"

Ahsoka nodded and forced a grin. "They do—two in fact. One is called Force Listening, and the other is called Comprehend Speech. My former Master's master was quite skilled at them and taught me a thing or two about the former. It allows one to listen through the force to others at a distance and even understand words in other languages."

"So you could have just asked him, instead of me doing that?" Harry asked, giving her a strange look.

"I couldn't have," Ahsoka admitted and looked toward the back of the sand person who was still lavishing in the canteen of water. "It only works on sentients who are willing to communicate, the sand people are too xenophobic for it to work."

Neither Ahsoka nor Harry spoke for several minutes. They walked in silence.

"Do you want to learn their language?" Harry suddenly asked, catching Ahsoka by surprise.

"Can I?" Ahsoka asked in surprise, before she could stop herself.

"Of course," Harry said, "My mind's already done most of the heavy lifting with word association. It should be a simple matter for you."

Ahsoka genuinely considered the offer. It was enticing, being able to learn and understand a language just like that. She'd seen how quickly Harry had gone from staring at the sand person to conversing with it. It would certainly be more convenient than having him translate for her—which she wasn't even sure that he would. He hadn't thus far.

Ahsoka licked her lips. "If I say no, you'll still tell me what they're saying, right?" She asked, looking at Harry.

"Of course," Harry said without hesitation. "I just figured you'd prefer to hear things first hand."

Ahsoka mulled over it for a few more seconds, before smiling and shaking her head. "I'm fine," she said. "Thank you for the offer, but…" She struggled to put into words why she didn't like the idea beyond 'because the Jedi taught her to be mindful of mental manipulations'.

"I understand," Harry said, smiling warmly at Ahsoka. "It took me a while to get comfortable with things like this as well. I don't begrudge you for being wary."

Ahsoka smiled in relief.

The smile lasted a whole second, before Ahsoka felt it. She almost cursed. She'd been so distracted by their conversation that she'd barely noticed the large group presence in the force ahead of them. "We're almost there," Ahsoka informed Harry.

As if on cue, their bandaged wrapped guide began to wail loudly, his screeching voice echoing throughout the canyons around them. Even before the echoes ended, there was multiple shrieks, distinctively different from the first.

"What's going on?" Ahsoka asked Harry, turning toward him.

"He's telling them that he's bringing guests and not to shoot us on sight," Harry replied with a faintly amused look on his face.

"And the others?"

Harry was hesitant to say, but in the end answered. "They're basically telling him that if we mess up or offend them, then he is going to die with us for bringing outsiders to their settlement."

"That doesn't sound very promising."

"I'm sure we'll be fine," Harry said, "We just have to avoid offending them."

Ahsoka watched as more and more sand people began to appear around them, all of them wielding a brutal looking pole weapon in hand, various shapes of spikes and blades on one end, and large heavy opposite ends. She could see more than a few stained with red.

As they rounded a bend in the canyon, they caught glimpse of a small sea of makeshift huts under the shadow of nearby ridge. "I hope you know what you're doing, Harry, for both our sakes," Ahsoka said, her voice quiet as they were lead into the proverbial rancors den.

Ahsoka was no stranger to being the centre of attention, but there something to be said about dozens of masked faces staring at you with a mixture of curiosity and in many cases, outright hostility.

They were whisked along to the centre of the makeshift village to the largest hut where they found themselves alone and face to face with a single sand person who was kneeling on a large leather mat. There was nothing really different about him, he looked the same as any of the other dozens she had seen, except… the weapon beside him was slightly more ornate than the others she had seen.

If Ahsoka was a betting girl, she'd say that he was the leader of the village—their Chieftain.

The Chieftain said something and Harry lowered himself onto his knees and sat on his heels. He gave Ahsoka a pointed look and she quickly did the same, dropping onto her knees and resting her rear on the back of her ankles.

Harry said something to the Chieftain, lifting a hand up and gesturing to Ahsoka.

Ahsoka suddenly found herself the object of the Chieftain's attention and found herself straightening her back slightly as she was put under scrutiny. She was already regretting the decision not to have Harry implant the language for her.

The Chieftain turned back to Harry and inclined its head.

Harry responded in its language, before speaking in basic again. "He's agreed to let me translate for you, Ahsoka," Harry explained, sending her a brief smile, before he turned his attention back to the sand person in front of them.

The Chieftain spoke.

"Why have you come before the People of the Sand, outsider?" Harry translated, before responding, "We come seeking knowledge of the history of the sand people and this planet."

There was a long stretch of silence and Ahsoka could feel the chieftains gaze burning into Harry, even though his mask and goggles.

"The history of my people is sacred and not for outsiders to hear at their own whim. If you wish to prove yourself worthy of such an honour, prove yourself to be friends of my people," Harry said, translating what the chieftain said as he spoke, before replying in kind.

The Chieftain reached to the side and picked up a crude cup that looked like it had been carved out of stone and set it in between himself and Harry.

Harry picked up the cup and held it in one hand. He brought his other hand up and began to trace his fingertip around the rim, closing his eyes as he did so.

As close as Ahsoka was, she was able to see inside the cup and watched in fascination as moisture began to condense and slowly by slowly the cup began to fill with water. She watched in rapt attention as Harry extended the cup forward, showing the Chieftain who, despite his masked face was expressing genuine wonder at the sight

"I give you the gift of water as a gesture of friendship," Harry said calmly and slowly turned his hand, tilting the cup and beginning to pour the water out onto the hut floor.

Ahsoka flinched as the Chieftain let out a howl of outrage—only for Harry to hold up a hand and speak again, quelling the anger at what Ahsoka assumed was his waste of water.

It was then that Ahsoka—and the Chieftain—noticed something. The cup was still pouring water despite the growing puddle on the floor, far more water than it should have been able to hold. Finally, Harry stopped, turning the cup upright and extending it toward the Chieftain who cautiously accepted it. As he passed it over, Ahsoka noticed that the water level hadn't changed at all.

"What the heck did you do?" Ahsoka whispered to Harry, "How did you do that?"

Harry smiled and mouthed the word 'Magic', much to Ahsoka's chagrin and nodded toward the Chieftain.

Ahsoka glanced back toward their 'host' and saw that he was examining the cup, rotating it in his hands. Finally, he reached over to a nearby bowl and placed it in front of him before beginning to pour the cups contents into the much larger bowl. He moved to upend the cup completely, only for Harry to hold up a hand and speak.

"If you empty the cup, there will be no more, as long as there is water, there is water," Harry said afterward for Ahsoka's sake.

The Chieftain stopped and regarded Harry for a long moment before nodding and setting the cup down again. It began to speak, its voice holding a reverent tone, despite the sounds it was making.

Ahsoka noticed that Harry had gone still for a brief moment, before he relaxed and smiled, inclining his head.

Ahsoka nudged him.

"Sorry," Harry said, before repeating what had been said. "I accept the gift of water on behalf of my tribe, wizard. Know that you are now friend of the Kr'kah'rrk," Harry paused, before adding on, "That's their tribe name."

The Chieftain lifted a hand up and gestured toward Ahsoka.

Harry grimaced. "He's asking what gift of friendship you brought for them," he said, looking troubled.

"I didn't bring anything," Ahsoka pointed out quickly, her eyes wide in a mixture of surprise and concern, before her mind kicked into gear. "I-I mean there are some spare electronics in the back of the speeder, would those work?"

"Relax," Harry said reassuringly, before turning back to the Chieftain and talking to it.

They conversed back and forth, and from what Ahsoka could see the Chieftain wasn't reacting badly to whatever Harry was saying to it.

Finally, it turned to face her and spoke.

"Tell me why you have come before the tribe," Harry translated for her. "What do you seek, orange child?"

"I'm only here because you're here," Ahsoka pointed out to Harry, "I'm looking for whatever it is you're looking for."

"I don't think he'll respond well to that," Harry admitted, reaching up and lightly scratching his cheek. "Personally, I'd respond with something profound that he can't take offence to or question."

Ahsoka raised an eyebrow skeptically at Harry's suggestion, but didn't dismiss it out of hand. She mulled over the question, unwilling to just say the first thing that came to her mind. Saying that she was only there because Harry was there was the truth, however, it wasn't the whole truth.

The truth was… The truth was that the first words that Harry had ever said to her—before they had even seen each other—had been more right than she had been willing to admit at the time.

"I've lost my way," Ahsoka finally said, looking at the Chieftain, even as Harry began to translate for her. "I once had a purpose, but it was taken away from me by betrayal, deceit and mistrust. I travel with Harry so that one day, I can find what I'm searching for, both within me, and within the force itself."

As soon as Harry finished translating for her, there was another round of silence as the Chieftain stared at her through his goggles. There was an intensity to his look that hadn't been there when he had been looking at Harry.

The uncomfortable notion that perhaps she had inadvertently offended him niggled at the back of Ahsoka's mind, and she found herself squirming ever so slightly, despite her best attempts to keep calm and collected.

The Chieftain finally broke the silence, gesturing as he spoke.

"The spirits have brought you before the Sand People so that you may seek enlightenment and find your path through a journey of self-discovery," Harry said, "In ancient times, the lost would be set the task of anointing themselves with the blood of a Demon of the Sand." As Harry spoke, the Chieftain brought its hand up to its face, drawing lines over its forehead and cheeks.

"Destiny has foretold your arrival, fate has brought you here to aid my people. There is a place known to the sand people as the Valley of Spirits. Many years ago a tribe brought the vengeance of a ghost upon them. It cursed the land with the blood it spilt by way of its sun sword. We pay tribute and sacrifice to appease the ghost, lest it turn its gaze to Kr'kah'rrk…"

Harry stopped translating and began to intently listen to the Chieftain, leaving Ahsoka with no idea what was being said—not that she would have been listening. No, her attention had faltered the moment she had heard the term 'sun sword'. She'd heard that term before from primitive species in relation to lightsabers. What she couldn't understand was what had prompted the Sith to attack one of the sand people villages in the past.

As Ahsoka furiously thought over everything she knew about Tatooine and the sand people, the Chieftain and Harry had finished talking.

"Ahsoka."

Ahsoka's gaze snapped up, and she found Harry looking at her in concern. "Are you alright?"

Ahsoka shook her head and smiled, "Yeah, of course, has he told you what I need to do yet?" She asked, glancing to the Chieftain.

Harry looked at her for a moment in silence before nodding. "He has," he said, "but I'm not certain if you should do it," he admitted, "It's dangerous."

"Tell me."

"One of the sand demons that he talked about has made the valley of the spirits its home," Harry explained with a grimace. "He wants you to go there and deal with it, alone. He won't let me go with you to help."

"That seems straight forward enough," Ahsoka said after a second, considering the request. It would be a lot easier if she had a lightsaber, but beggars couldn't be choosers—plus she doubted that the sand people would react well to a 'sun sword' in their presence.

"Ahsoka," Harry began to say. "I don't think you understand how dangerous a sand demon is."

"Then enlighten me," Ahsoka said dryly.

"They hunt krayt dragons for food," Harry said, a serious look on his face.

"Oh." Ahsoka stared. Krayt Dragons were huge and could grow as long as fifty meters and as tall as ten meters. They were one of the apex predators on the planet, able to swallow people whole. "That's bad," she said, biting her bottom lip.

"Just a bit, yeah," Harry agreed. "I'm not going to force you to do this," he told her firmly. "It's far too dangerous for you."

Ahsoka frowned. "Says who?" she demanded to know, folding her arms across her chest.

Harry opened his mouth to respond, before stopping, closing it, considering and nodding. "You're right, it isn't for me to say if it's too dangerous for you or not," he admitted, "I'm just concerned for you, from how he's described it, these things are something that I wouldn't want to tussle with."

Ahsoka took a breath and exhaled slowly before smiling at Harry. "You worry too much," she told him, "Where do I need to go?"

Harry looked at Ahsoka for a long time, before shaking his head and smiling at her. "You're proper brilliant, you know that right? You'd fit right at home in Gryffindor."

"I have no idea what that is," Ahsoka informed him.

Harry chuckled. "No, you wouldn't," he agreed, before sobering up. He turned toward the Chieftain and asked him a question in their language.

He got a response.

"Come on, I'll walk you to the edge of the village," he told her and slowly stood up.

Ahsoka did so as well, stretching slightly as she considered the task before her. "I get a feeling I shouldn't have turned down the blaster or sword from earlier," she said mildly as they began to walk.

"No," Harry said with a shake of his head. "I don't think you were wrong to do that. This is a journey of self-discovery for you, I don't think violence is the way you should go about it." He paused. "But that's not for me to decide, is it?"

Ahsoka didn't respond as they walked through the village, sand people on all sides, silently watching them. Most of them had ditched their weapons along with the outright hostility. Meeting with the chieftain had apparently earned them form of leeway.

"What happens if I fail?" Ahsoka asked, her voice quiet.

Harry didn't answer straight away, and it wasn't until they reached the edge of the village that he did. "I imagine if you don't return victorious, they'll be unhappy and try to take it out on me," he admitted, before flashing her a smile. "Not that they'd succeed. Just stay safe Ahsoka, that's all I ask."

"Where do I need to go?" Ahsoka repeated her earlier question as she stared out along the canyon.

"This area is called the Jundland Wastes by the settlers," Harry said, "To the west is the Western Dune Sea, the Valley of the Spirits is somewhere between here and there. If you see a massive rock formation that looks like a bridge then you're going the right way. They call it B'Thazoshe." He hesitated for a moment before adding, "Don't go under it, the sand people believe that it brings misfortune if you don't fire a weapon into it before passing, and well, you don't have a blaster."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes and smiled, despite herself. "Yet another reason why I should have brought one," she said mildly before shaking her head. "Don't worry, Harry, I'll be back before you know it."

"I know," Harry smiled back at her, reaching out and lightly touching her upon the shoulder. "Good luck."

With that said, Ahsoka wasted no more time and began to walk away from the village. As she walked she could hear more of the sand people speaking in their guttural language.

She couldn't help but wonder who was going to be in more danger, her with the sand demon, or the sand people with Harry. It perplexed her how quickly he was capable of acting like a wise jedi master one moment, and an excitable youngling with their first training saber the next.

Ahsoka looked up toward the sky and saw that the light blue was beginning to darken and take on a more purplish tone, a sure sign that the day had progressed into the afternoon. She had no idea how many more hours of sunlight she had left, but she had to make the most of them. Once more she cursed Harry insisting that they left the speeder behind and broke out into a sprint.

She had no idea how long Harry's magic would last, nor what would happen once the sun had set and there was no more heat to cool, but while she had it, she was going to take advantage. With renewed purpose, Ahsoka began to run along the canyon bottom, her eyes set forward, intent on reaching the 'Valley of the Spirits' before the sun set.

The wind whipped past her, grains of sand carrying along with it as she raced onward. Half an hour later she found herself exiting the canyon out onto a large open rocky plane that spread out into the desert beyond.

The sky had long since been dyed a burning red that cast the world itself in a purplish orange glow. In the far distance to the west, Ahsoka spied what she could have only assumed was the natural bridge that Harry had told her to look for. Even as far away as she was from it, it was still massive.

Ahsoka let out a breath and began to hurriedly make her way toward it. As she got closer and closer, it became readily apparent that she was walking toward the sunset as Tatooine's twin suns dipped below the bridge and began to sink beyond the horizon.

Ahsoka watched in muted wonder as twilight began to set in and the cloudless sky itself looked as though it had caught fire, casting the horizon in hues of yellow, orange and red. There was something familiar about it, though Ahsoka couldn't quite put her finger on it—nor did she have the time.

By the time she passed under the bridge the suns had well and truly set, casting the land in a darkness only broken up by the bright stars above.

The magic that Harry had bestowed her with had long since fizzled out by the time Tatooine's three moons had risen into the sky. The bitter cold of the night bit at her skin, and made her regret not bringing along warmer clothes.

Suddenly, at the edge of her senses, Ahsoka felt something…dark. At first it was barely noticeable, but as she continued forward, it began to grow and grow until it was impossible not to feel it.

A beacon of darkness within the night.

It was repulsive and unsettling. She could scarcely imagine what acts of horror had been committed to taint the land to the point where it could be sensed miles away.

Steeling her nerves, Ahsoka began her final approach, climbing up over onto a rock mesa that stood between her and the valley beyond. She was mindful as she scaled the wall, using the force to enhance her ability to scale it with the use of empowered jumps.

Ahsoka pulled herself up onto the top and dusted herself off, making her way to the other side. As high as she was, she could feel the chilling night breeze biting at her skin, she couldn't help but wrap her arms around herself, rubbing her upper arms to try and stave it off.

The moons and stars lit up the valley below with a faint white light, illuminating the remains of a village much like the one that Ahsoka had found herself at hours earlier. None of the huts were intact, their frames of bone and animal leather having been unable to withstand Tatooine's inhospitable mercies after so long.

Ahsoka slowly crouched down on the edge of the mesa, peering down at the ruins. She couldn't see any signs of movement, no sign of a 'sand demon'. There was a visible pile of something at the centre of the village—what it was, she couldn't say from this distance.

Still… the dark presence in the force that ensnared the land, it unsettled her deeply and she found herself reluctant to go down. She had no trouble understanding why the Sand People thought that it had been cursed by an angry ghost.

"Alright Ahsoka," Ahsoka said to herself, "Time to head down to the creepy village." With a deep breath she drew upon the force and dropped down over the edge of the mesa.

She fell fast, but she was unconcerned, even as the wind whipped past her, burning her eyes, she could feel the force within her, empowering her and giving her strength and resilience. As the ground began to close in on her, Ahsoka tucked her limbs in and curled up, spinning forward and at the last second, extending her limbs and landing in a crouch. She felt a shudder run through her bones at the impact, but the majority of it had been buffered by a sudden burst of force she let loose at the last second to cushion her fall.

Ahsoka let out a short breath and stood up, turning toward the ruined sand people village and beginning to make her way toward it. As she got closer she found herself tensing as the oppressive nature of the dark side that permeated the area began to gnaw at her.

By the time she first set foot inside the ruins of the village, she found herself on edge, her fists clenched at her side. As she slowly walked in, she began to see more and more details that had eluded her from far away. Large white bones scattered the area—no doubt the remains of the Bantha that the sand people had domesticated. There were smaller bones scattered around including skulls that had been cut in half and whole skeletons that had been split down the middle.

Right at the center of it all there was what appeared to be an altar. Upon it there were various trinkets, some metal, some organic,—along with… Ahsoka found herself stopping and staring at a pile of bodies in varying states of decay. They ranged from dried out husks to yellowed bones with gristle hanging off them.

A wave of nausea overcame Ahsoka. "I'm going to be sick," she muttered as she took a step back, revulsion overcoming her. The sand people had been so civil with her and Harry, that she forgot what they were, and how barbaric they could be.

Ahsoka was so overcame by her disgust at the sight that she barely registered that something was approaching. It was only thanks to the passive echolocation provided by the montral atop of her head that she wasn't caught completely unaware.

Ahsoka lunged backwards as the sand exploded out from beneath her and something large and ferocious tore itself up out of the rock and sand below, with razor sharp talon-like legs, showering the ruins of the camp with debris.

The creature let out a shrieking howl from a massive mouth filled with needle-like teeth. On either side of its head there were curved eye stalks, each contained a single blood red eye that were locked onto her, even as she continued to dash backwards to put distance between her and it.

Once Ahsoka had managed to claim some breathing room, she took a chance to get a look at the thing that had ambushed her.

The Sand Demon was large—not big enough to easily swallow her in one bite, but big enough to attempt the feat and have a decent chance at pulling it off. It had six mottled black legs that were apparently powerful enough to cleave through rock as if it were dirt. Its carapace was a greenish yellow, between the segments of which pale tan muscle could be seen.

Ahsoka's hands reached down to her waist for her lightsabers on instinct, only to find nothing. Once more, for the second time in as many days, Ahsoka cursed her lack of Lightsaber and cursed Harry for putting her in another situation where she was faced with something that wanted to eat her.

The sand demon let out a screech of challenge and rampaged forward, it's talon-like legs gouging holes in the rock beneath them as it charged toward her.

Ahsoka gave herself over to the force and lunged forward, rolling beneath the creatures body as it swung it's front legs, gouging out deep trenches in the rocky surface and sending shards of rock flying.

Ahsoka came to her feet and broke out into a sprint, putting distance between her and the vicious creature as it turned around and once more charged her.

Ahsoka's heart pounded in her chest as she found herself besieged by the monstrous creature as it savagely pursued her. It took her entire attention and all the skill she had gained over the course of the Clone Wars to evade its relentless pursuit. She was starkly aware that even a glancing blow would maim, if not outright kill her. She had no room for error, no room to think, only to react, darting beneath it and avoiding its legs as it attempted to skewer her as she dashed back out.

"This was a terrible idea," Ahsoka complained to herself as she ducked and rolled out of the way of another vicious series of swipes that tore the stone itself asunder. As she came to her feet, she found her foot caught on something. Her eyes widened as she realized that she'd stumbled upon one of the huts coverings.

Thinking quickly, Ahsoka gripped the edge of the animal leather and flipped forward, yanking it up behind her. She felt the ground tremble as the creature charged her, and at the last second she leapt up using the force to boost her. She twisted in the air, pulling the large thick blanket of leather up and into the path of the sand demon.

She gripped the edges tight as she felt the tension snap to in the leather and landed on the creatures back. She held on for dear life as the creature beneath her roared in frustration and began to thrash around, attempting to free itself.

"Make this easier on yourself and give up!" Ahsoka shouted out over the top of the sand demons howls. The creature's massive legs tore into the rock, sundering it violently in its efforts to be freed, culminating in the ground below shattering and falling out from beneath them.

Ahsoka's eyes widened in panic as she suddenly found herself weightless in fall. She and the sand demon she rode dropped, its violent thrashing causing them both to spin out of control as they fell, chunks of rock falling around them.

With an almighty kick, Ahsoka launched herself clear of the sand demon, bounding to a large falling chunk of rock, and then another, and another, climbing higher and higher amongst the falling debris in an attempt to reach the surface.

With a final empowered jump, Ahsoka launched herself toward the edge of the hole, her hands reaching up. A thrill of relief surged through her as she felt the cold dry rock of the still solid surface edge.

The relief lasted as long as it took the rock beneath her fingers to crumble.

She fell into darkness.

Ahsoka shut her eyes as the wind stung them. Had she been a lesser Jedi, or not a Togruta, she may have panicked. As it was, she focused on the sensory information provided by her montral. She heard and felt the stones hitting the cavern floor below and used the sound to estimate how far below the ground was.

At the last second she drew upon the force and as she landed, she let out a telekinetic burst, buffering her fall, even as the ground beneath her trembled from the blast. She stumbled as her feet hit the ground and found loose rocks beneath them, but managed to keep from falling over.

Ahsoka let out a shuddering breath as the dust that filled the air began to settle, and the sounds of tiny fragments of rocks hitting the ground slowly pattered off.

For the briefest moments, Ahsoka held hope that she had been lucky enough that the fall had managed to kill the Sand Demon—or at least knocked it unconscious. She cursed herself for even considering the possibility that the universe would have been kind to her as, at the far end of the cavern, she heard stone groaning and shifting.

The Sand Demon burst out from beneath the rubble that had piled atop it, letting out a shriek of maddened rage. Through the dim moonlight, that had begun to filter through the dust, Ahsoka could make out its shape as it thrashed, its massive talons clawing at the rubble around it and pulling itself out from beneath the pile of stone and rock.

In that moment, as the beast snarled and tried to find her, Ahsoka had an epiphany. The Sand Demon was angry. It had been angry from the start. It made no sense. If it had been attacking her out of hunger or in defence of its territory—Ahsoka could have understood, but from the very beginning it had been practically frothing at the mouth.

As clouded as her senses were, Ahsoka could clearly feel the hand of the darkside at work, driving the creature rabid. As long as its mind was tainted, it would not stop, it would not rest.

Ahsoka lifted a hand up, extending it toward the Sand Demon, even as it caught sight of her and let out a furious screech. She closed her eyes, reached out through the force and connected with it.

There was no time for doubt, no room for hesitation. Ahsoka felt the ground tremble beneath as the beast charged across the cavern, it's powerful legs shattering the loose rock that scattered the floor.

She reached across the space that separated them, into the maddened creatures mind and supplanted the power of the dark side with her own, pushing away the dark emotions that plagued the sand demon with peace and tranquillity.

Ahsoka was so focused so intensely on reaching through the force, that at first she didn't realize that she wasn't in agonising pain, and that the cavern had gone silent. Ahsoka slowly cracked open her eyes, and found the sand demon's tooth filled maw mere inches away. It's eyes while still red, were no longer murderous.

She watched as the sand demon slowly rose back up and stepped backwards, putting a small amount of distance between them as it stared down at her, a perplexed look in its eyes.

"I can't believe that worked," Ahsoka muttered to herself, shaking her head before smiling up at the sand demon. "Hi," she greeted, and then found that she had nothing else to say to it. What could she say? 'Hi, I want your blood'?

With the immediate danger out of the way, and the sand demon more or less docile, Ahsoka took a moment to get a good look at it, both with her eyes in the dim light from above, as well as through the force.

It certainly was a vicious creature, but Ahsoka couldn't sense any outright hostile intent anymore. As she thought about it, and took in the cavern around her, Ahsoka began to piece together what had happened.

"You… were hibernating down here," Ahsoka said slowly, turning her gaze back toward it, sensing something through the force that she tried to put into words. "You must have been tainted by the dark side while you slept," she reasoned. "Your mind corrupted by it, and when you woke up…" she trailed off, trying to imagine the state it would have been in—that it had been in when she had arrived.

Whatever the sith had done in the village above, it had turned an intelligent, vicious predator into a mindless, ravenous beast. The anger and hatred that it had manifested within it had been obscene and deadly, and yet now, she could still sense how dangerous it was, yet it posed none to her thanks to the connection she had forged between them through the force.

She could sense that it no longer wished to linger in the area, and that it was hungry. Thankfully it didn't consider her part of the dinner menu any longer.

Ahsoka let out a sigh and smiled up at the sand demon. "I don't suppose you understand that I need your blood do you?" She lamented.

The sand demon stared down at her for a long moment, before it bowed its head down and a shudder ran through it. Ahsoka watched in mild surprise as blood began to ooze out of the membrane beneath one of its eyes.

She reacted instantly as it dropped, her hands reaching out to collect it. She felt the hot blood splash against her palm. The sand demon spared her one last look, even as drop continued to drool out of its eyestalk, and then it left, turning away and vanishing into the darkness of the cavern. She could hear the faint click-clack of its six legs against the rock growing more and more faint.

But that wasn't important, what was important was the warm blood, freely given in her hands—that smelled so awful that Ahsoka thought she was going to throw up.

Her face contorted in disgust, "Oh gross!" she gagged, looking down into her hands and immediately regretting the choice. She had to put it on her face? She was never going to get rid of the smell!

Ahsoka steeled herself and brought her hands up to her face, dragging two fingers coated in the disgusting goo across her cheeks and up along her forehead. "It smells worse up close," Ahsoka groaned, her face contorted in disgust as she began to wipe her hands on her tunic, well aware that she was never going to be able to get the smell out.

With her grotesque task accomplished, Ahsoka turned her attention upward to the large whole in the roof of the cavern. As she looked up, she began to notice something strange. The dust had finally settled, and the light from the stars and moon above had begun to filter into the cave brighter and brighter, and as it did so, the ceiling of the cavern began to glimmer with flecks of silvery white light.

A strong sense of Déjà vu overcame Ahsoka. She felt—no, she knew that she had been here before. She remembered standing exactly where she was, looking up at the dark ceiling that sparkled like the night sky above. It was something important, she was certain.

As Ahsoka wracked her brain and attempted to recall, she turned her gaze away from the ceiling, and as she did, she noticed something similar happening at her feet, motes of silver trapped within the debris. She bent over and picked through the rocks, pulling out a fist sized chunk with a gleam of silver embedded in it.

She brought it up to her face and curiously examined it. Ahsoka's eyes widened as she realized what she was holding—what covered the caverns ceiling and a smile broke out on her lips despite the stench she endured.

Ahsoka gripped the rock firmly in hand and crouched down, smashing it against the floor. It broke, shattering and releasing the crystal inside it. She brushed away the remaining rock and picked up two shards of silver that had fragmented.

She held them up to the moonlight, and stared at it in fascination, watching the light refract through it and her face broke out into a smile.

Ahsoka didn't quite believe in destiny, but she did believe that if one looked closely, they could see the hand of the force in all things, somethings, more clearly than others.

She reached inside her tunic and drew out the pouch that she had received from Master Plo Koon, slipping the crystals inside and placing it back inside her clothes.

"Now, how am I going to get out of here?" Ahsoka asked herself.

The simple answer would be to try and climb out—simple in the sense that it was straight forward. The only other option was to try her hand at navigating out through the tunnels that the sand demon had taken, which lead who knew where. For all she knew they could lead further down into the planet and never reach the surface.

Ahsoka began walking toward the closest cavern wall, knowing full well that the only way she was going to get out—bar some miracle—was to climb out with her own two hands. She just had no idea how she was going to manage it.

Nor would she have to figure it out.

As if answering her unspoken prayer, she heard a familiar click-clack in the darkness of the cave. She turned to the source and watched as the sand demon from earlier emerged from the darkness.

"Oh, hey," Ahsoka said awkwardly as she found herself face to face with the creature again. "I don't suppose you could give me a lift out of here, could you?"

Ahsoka watched as the sand demon lowered itself down onto its belly to allow her to climb atop it. She found herself at a loss for words, and another smile broke out on her features as she quickly climbed aboard.

The sand demon wasted no time, and Ahsoka found herself clinging on tightly as it rapidly approached a cavern wall, and immediately began to climb, its powerful legs easily puncturing holes in the stone and lifting it up further and further.

At one point, Ahsoka found herself upside down and hanging on for dear life as gravity threatened to yank her down, but through sheer force of will, Ahsoka managed to stay attached and within minutes they were out of the gaping hole in the barren flats that had once been the 'haunted' ruins of the sand peoples village.

"Thanks for the ride, stinky," Ahsoka said with a relieved smile, reaching forward and patting the sand demon on the back of its head before hopping off and landing on the semi-solid ground.

The sand demon let out a crooning growl before vanishing back down the hole and out of sight once more.

"Probably should have asked for a ride back to the sand people camp," Ahsoka mused, she shook her head with a chuckle and turned away, beginning the long trek back to the sand people's camp.

By the time she reached the camp and saw the glowing orange of camp fire, Ahsoka was well and truly beat. Her limbs felt like they were filled with lead, and her nose had long since passed on from the worldly plain.

She hadn't expected to see anyone waiting for her, let alone for Harry to be standing there, a look of relief on his face at the sight of her. "Welcome back Ahsoka," Harry said, tension visibly leaving his body. "You had me worr—oh god, what is that smell?" His face scrunched up in disgust and he took a step back.

Ahsoka gave him a withering look. "Not one more word," she warned him, "I will end you, Harry."

Harry bit down on his bottom lip and nodded, his features tightened with a grimace. "Come… come on," he said, gesturing for her to walk with him. "Let's… ugh… get that story and get you a bath."

Ahsoka reached over and punched Harry on the shoulder as hard as she could. It barely made him wobble. "Shut up and… just shut up," she said tiredly, reaching up and rubbing her eyes. "Let's get this over with."

Most of the Sand People had been asleep from the looks of it, but as Ahsoka walked with Harry they began to peek out of their huts and at the sight of her—and probably the smell, they began to cheer, lifting their weapons up high and pumping them in the air in celebration of her victorious return.

Harry escorted her through the wailing crowd's right to the Chieftain's tent, a grin on his lips. "You're a regular superstar here now," he commented offhandedly as they stepped into the tent.

The Chieftain was sitting in the same place as he had been when Ahsoka had left all those hours ago. She couldn't help but wonder if he had even gotten up or moved in the entire time she was gone. None the less, she sat down beside Harry, taking the positions they had before.

Ahsoka found herself the centre of the sand people's leader's attention, his head turned toward her. The Chieftain bowed his head briefly, lifting a hand up and gesturing as he spoke.

"Outsider, you wandered the desert seeking enlightenment. Did you find what was lost?" Harry once again took up his role as translator.

Ahsoka's first reaction would have been to irritably rebuke the question. They'd send her to go kill a creature that had been corrupted by the dark side against its will. There had been nothing 'enlightening' about the whole experience—well, at least not by their standards of violence.

Sure she'd somehow managed to use the force to communicate with it, and sure she'd managed to purge the dark side influence, but that hadn't been part of the trial at all, had it? It had been pure happenstance. She wouldn't have even had the opportunity had they not fallen into the cavern.

Ahsoka's thought process tapered off as a slow realization dawned on her.

The Clone Wars had caused much strife in the galaxy since their inception. The Jedi had been on the front lines for the entire time, commanding the armies of the republic and doing their duties as the protectors.

Ahsoka found herself staring down at her hands numbly. Violence had become such an ingrained reaction, that if she had possessed her lightsabers when she had been confronted by the sand demon, she wouldn't have hesitated in striking it down.

She would have never learned that it was a victim of the dark side.

Ahsoka exhaled slowly and smiled despite herself. "I don't think I'm at the end of my journey yet, but I think I've discovered something important," she said. "Thank you for helping me on my first step," she said, the gratitude genuine in her voice.

The Chieftain bowed his head briefly, before turning back to Harry.

"If we've satisfied your requests, we'd like to hear your early history now, wise one," Harry said.

The Chieftain said something to which Harry frowned and responded, before frowning again as the Chieftain vehemently pounded his fist against the ground.

"What's going on?" Ahsoka asked, trying to hold back a yawn.

"Well," Harry said reluctantly. "We're not allowed to just hear the parts of their history that we want to hear." He grimaced. "It's heretical to only hear certain parts, if we're going to hear it at all, it's going to be from start to finish. It could take several hours."

"We've come this far," Ahsoka pointed out, "It'd be a shame to not hear it after everything we've—I've been through."

Harry gave her a look and shook his head in amusement, before informing the Chieftain that they were willing to hear it all.

The Chieftain slowly stood up and gestured for Ahsoka and Harry to do the same, before leading them out of his hut and letting out a loud bellow. He approached the largest bonfire in the camp and spoke to Harry, before wandering off.

"Come on," Harry said to Ahsoka, "Let's grab a good seat. He's gathering everyone for the history reciting."

They sat down and watched as the tribe gathered around the fire. It wasn't long before the Chieftain returned alongside two other sand people. The first was old, it's mask visibly worn, and was hunched over as they hobbled along, the second was younger and stood straight as it walked alongside the elder.

The two of them took centre stage with the chieftain to the side. The elder of the two inclined its head before sitting down. The younger remained standing in front of the large bonfire and began to belt out mind numbingly painful screeches.

As Ahsoka prepared for countless hours of headache inducing 'history lessons', a sudden quietness overcame her that was almost stunning in comparison to the loud noise that preceded it.

"That's a bit better, isn't it?" Harry asked, flashing a smile to Ahsoka before turning his attention back. "He's the Storyteller's apprentice," Harry explained, nodding toward the sand person. "This is his trial, if he manages to recite the whole history without making a mistake, he'll become the new storyteller of the tribe."

"What happens if he messes up?"

"For his sake let's hope he doesn't," Harry said with a grimace. "Looks like they're starting."

Harry began to listen intently and translate for her.

"In the ancient times, we were not sand people, for there was no sand. The land was green with life, and we walked without bandages. Though the land was beautiful, we lived apart from it. We build our walls high and saw beyond the horizon. We dared to reach to the stars."

Ahsoka watched the Storyteller as she listened to Harry, taking note of the grand gestures it made as it gestured to the ground and then clawed at the sky. She could scarcely imagine the 'sand people' not being sand people, or that, at some point in their civilization, they'd been capable of spaceflight—even if it was rudimentary.

"There are no words for how long ago it was. It was before the Outsiders, before the abduction, before the cities fell and before the Builders."

Ahsoka's brow furrowed. She wasn't surprised by the fact that they didn't keep track of time. She already knew the term 'Outsider', Builder, however, was a new one.

"Our arrogant ancestors touched the stars, and this sin drew the attention of the Builders. The Builders did not touch the stars; they bound them to millstones. Great demons of metal stripped the world of its riches, until all that was left was the green of the ground. The once great cities were lifted away."

Ahsoka watched as the Storyteller bowed down, scooped up a handful of sand and let it trail away through its fingers, scattering to the wind.

"Those who used the riches were taken along with them; transgressors abducted to serve past the sky, seeding the stars with penitent, adaptable slaves."

Ahsoka lifted a hand up to her lips and stifled a yawn. As she heard more and more, she began to wonder why the sand people referred to the slavers who had abducted their people as Builders. The obvious answer was that they had built something—something 'big' enough to earn that name—but that still didn't quite make sense.

"There came a time when the builders were also judged for their crimes. After generations, a plague weakened them, and the time of the Great War began. The builders faltered, and our people realized why we had been punished; so we understood the crime, and would now strike down the greater offender."

Despite her interest in the history lesson being told, as she listened to Harry, she began to feel her eyelids droop, more and more and struggled to keep awake and attentive.

"The ancestors worked chaos in the machines, so that they destroyed themselves. The builders fought back, laying waste to the green that had been misused with fire from above. Soil became glass, grinding to sand, but the fight was long-planned, and the ancestors were safe. Deep in the cave-homes carved from the valley walls. We were free."

Ahsoka wasn't sure when it happened, but at some point she had fallen asleep, she'd only realized it upon being nudged by Harry.

"Mm'awake," Ahsola murmured as she forced her eyes back open.

"Good thing," Harry said, "If you were asleep they'd have been honour bound to repeat the history, all three hours that you missed."

"I haven't been asleep for that long," Ahsoka said, frowning slightly as she glanced toward the storyteller and found him still gesturing, though she couldn't hear anything thanks to whatever magic Harry had used.

"You didn't really miss anything important," Harry said, reaching up and lightly scratching his cheek. "There was an interesting bit about a lost tribe who embraced machines that a Jedi brought at some point in the past, but besides that it was all wandering the desert and complaining about outsiders."

Ahsoka gave Harry an odd look, but didn't question him about it. Instead, she turned her attention to the sand people and watched as the elder storyteller approached the young one and they began to converse.

"What's happening?"

"He managed to recite the entire history without making a mistake," Harry told Ahsoka, "The older one is passing over the mantle of Storyteller to his apprentice and…" Harry trailed off.

Ahsoka watched as the old storyteller turned away and began to walk away from the central bonfire.

The sand people made space, and as one they all watched as he walked out of the camp, and kept walking, heading out into the desert.

She looked at Harry, only to find that he had a stony look on his face.

"What's going on?"

"The tribe only needs one storyteller, when the mantle is passed on, the old storyteller walks into the desert to wander until he passes on." Harry made a small gesture with his hand, and the sound barrier fell, causing a rush of sound to greet Ahsoka all at once.

She winced at the sudden increase in volume as the voices of the sand people suddenly reached her. "Could have warned me," she grumbled.

"Sorry," Harry said, not looking the least bit apologetic as he pushed himself up onto his feet. "Come on, we've stayed long enough, we should probably get going," he told her.

Ahsoka gave Harry a strange look, not immediately processing why he wanted to leave so suddenly, but it quickly dawned on her. "Oh." She pushed herself onto her feet and watched as Harry approached the Chieftain and bid his farewell—or made an excuse as to why they suddenly needed to leave.

Ahsoka had no idea what was being said, but from the look of things, the Chieftain was reluctant to let Harry go so soon. None the less, within minutes she found herself walking along side Harry, heading out into the desert after the old Storyteller.


End file.
